


Is it Seventh Heaven or the Seventh Ring of Hell?

by LandsharkEnforcementSquad



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 22:58:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandsharkEnforcementSquad/pseuds/LandsharkEnforcementSquad





	1. Lucky Number Seven?

'Love is a stupid emotion,' you think as you stare at the back of a very pink head. Haruno Sakura was probably one of the most annoying people on the planet. She was always squealing over her crush and glaring at anyone who so much as glanced at him. Right now she was making a very obvious effort to show off her 'figure' and it was becoming obnoxious. You shifted your irritated gaze to the object of her affection, Uchiha Sasuke. He was equally deserving of your hatred, since it was his fault all the girls in your town were idiots. It was moments like these that made you think you'd rather not fall in love. If you were going to be like that when it happened, it would be better to just avoid it. "Hey, _______." You looked to your left and 'hmm'-ed to let the person know you heard. "Can you switch seats with me? I want to sit behind Sakura-chan." You got up with a sigh so they could take your seat. Uzumaki Naruto - yet another love idiot. About two minutes after you sat down, Iruka-sensei entered the room and stood at the front of the classroom.  
"Starting today, you are all official ninjas, but..." he paused for a moment, "you are still new Genins. It gets harder from here." As far as speeches went, it was pretty standard. You had expected it to be about like that. The only unexpected thing was what came next. "You all will be in a group of three, where you will accomplish missions under a Jounin teacher," he said. Reactions to this varied. Most of the girls seemed to decide on their own that they would be teamed up with Sasuke. You had a feeling he saw the arrangement as nothing but a burden. As for yourself, you didn't care either way as long as your team wasn't too annoying. "We've arranged the groups such that overall abilities are equivalent. I will now announce them." As people were assigned to groups, sighs of disappointment mixed with noises of relief and pleasure. "Next, seventh group. Since we have an odd number of students this year, this will be a group of four. Naruto Uzumaki, Haruno Sakura," Naruto jumped up with a shout of success, while Sakura hung her head with a moan, "______ ________, and Uchiha Sasuke." This time, Naruto and Sakura's reactions were reversed. You put your head in your hands and waved goodbye to your hopes for a peaceful team as they all jumped off a cliff. Your team was made entirely of people who made you mad. Naruto would probably chase after Sakura, Sakura would definitely chase after Sasuke, and you would have to put up with it, most likely until you retired. "That's it for the groups," Iruka-sensei concluded when the last three teams were assigned.  
"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto called, pointing his finger angrily at Sasuke. "Why does a top student like me have to be in a group with this guy?"  
"Sasuke graduated with the highest score in the class. Naruto, yours was the lowest!" Everyone laughed and Naruto glared at Sasuke. "I'm going to introduce the Jounin teachers in the afternoon. Until then, meeting adjourned." Students rushed out of the room to meet up with their teams for lunch. You took your time and walked slowly toward the door while you thought about what you would do. 'I should probably meet up with my team like everyone else,' you told yourself reluctantly. 'Then again this will probably be my last chance to avoid them, so I'll take it while I can.' You were leaving the building when you saw Sakura looking for Sasuke, so you stuck to the shadows and escaped before she could see you. Once you were free, you headed for the woods at the edge of town. There was a huge, ancient tree that you always went to when you wanted to be alone, and so far no one had ever found you there. After getting to the tree, you climbed as high as you could, only stopping when the branches above looked too thin to hold you. The view from that height was great, so you leaned back against the trunk and looked out over the green tops of trees. It wasn't long before you fell asleep.

You woke up to an almost setting sun. "Ah, hell! I'm definitely late!" You quickly climbed down from the tree and sprinted towards the classroom. Hopefully everyone hadn't left yet, but at this point it was more likely that they did. Finally, you reached the room. You shoved the door aside and something fell on your head. Looking down, you saw an eraser laying on the floor at your feet. "Why is it raining erasers in here?" you asked.  
"Aww, _______, you ruined it!" voice surprised you. You hadn't realized anyone was here. "Why are you so late anyway?" You scratched your head and grinned guiltily.  
"I guess I fell asleep in the middle of the woods for a few hours." Everyone gave you weird looks. There was no helping it though, that's just how you were. You looked around, but you didn't see anyone besides Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. "Where's the teacher? Did they go home already?"  
"He hasn't shown up yet," Sakura explained while Naruto re-placed the eraser in the door way. He stepped back to admire his work and you raised an eyebrow.  
"Do you really expect an elite ninja to fall for something like that?" Just then, a masked man walked through the door. The eraser fell on his head and you immediately took back your words of doubt. Naruto started laughing uncontrollably and Sakura tried to act like she was against it the whole time, but it was obvious she thought it was funny too. 'He probably hates us now.' The man picked up the eraser and examined it.  
"How should I say this... my first impressions of you guys are... I hate you." Everyone but you was shocked. 'Just as I thought.' You didn't bother to try and explain your innocence; it wasn't likely it would work anyway.

For some reason, the classroom wasn't a good enough place for introductions, so you all moved outside. "Let's see, why don't you guys introduce yourselves? Stuff like what you like, dislike, your dreams and hobbies." You rested your chin on your hand and looked at him  
"Aren't you supposed to introduce yourself before asking others to?" you asked. He sighed and crossed his arms.  
"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention of telling you my likes and dislikes. As for my dream... I have a few hobbies." He didn't say anything else so you assumed he was done. 'How detailed,' you thought sarcastically.  
"So in the end, all we found out is his name," Sakura muttered.  
"Now it's your turn," Kakashi-sensei declared. "You first." He looked at Naruto.  
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I like cup ramen, but I like the ramen at Ichiraku that Iruka-sensei bought for me even more! I hate the three minutes I have to wait after I put the hot water in. My hobby is to eat and compare cup ramens! And my dream is to become greater than the Hokages!" You smiled behind your hands that were folded in from of your mouth. It seemed like all he thought of was ramen. You were surprised his dream wasn't to be a food critic that wrote exclusively about ramen shops. Next was Sakura's turn.  
"My name is Haruno Sakura! I like... well the person I like is... And my hobby is... well dream is to..." The whole time she talked, she kept glancing at Sasuke, and at the end she squealed. Based on that you guessed she was imagining her wedding day. When Kakashi-sensei asked her what she hated, she replied without hesitation. "Naruto!" You felt bad for him. Sure, the idea of love was just silly to you, and his overeager way of pursuing it got on your nerves, but he was over all a good guy. It had to hurt hearing that from his crush. You put it out of your mind for now; it was Sasuke's turn and you were interested to hear what a guy like that had to say.  
"My name is Sasuke. There are many things that I hate and not a lot of things that I like." You looked at him out of the corner of your eye. 'Seems like a happy guy.' "Also I have an ambition that I have no intention to leave as just a dream. The revival of my clan... and to kill a certain man. You got the feeling this guy would lead a very dark life. Sakura, on the other hand, seemed like she just thought it was cool. Naruto probably thought Sasuke meant him. You were so caught up in analyzing the personalities of your teammates you didn't realize it was your turn until Sakura elbowed you in the ribs.  
"Ah, I guess it's me now. Well, I like high places, and what I hate is obnoxious people and the people who attract obnoxious people. As for hobbies, I climb trees, and my dream is to move to the mountains and become a hermit." The others gave you weird looks for the second time that day. You just shrugged. You couldn't help that your interests were strange compared to others.  
"All right, you four all have unique personalities. I like that." Kakashi-sensei said. 'Well, that's one way to put it...' The next part caught your attention. "We're going to begin a mission starting tomorrow," he announced. "First, we're going to start out with something we five can do - survival training." Now everyone was interested.  
"Why are we going to train if it's a mission?" Sakura asked. You wondered about that too. "We had plenty of training at the academy." You stopped agreeing with her there. You guys were just Genin, after all. You weren't even Chuunin, you definitely weren't Jounin, and there was no way any of you were Sanin. It wasn't likely you'd even learned a hundredth of what you could.  
"It isn't just ordinary training," Kakashi-sensei told her. When Naruto asked what kind of training it was, he started laughing. Honestly, it sounded evil. "Well, if I say this, I'm sure you four are going to be surprised. Out of the twenty seven graduates, only nine of you are going to become genins. Well, ten if your team makes it. The others will be sent back to the academy. In other words, this training is going to be a very hard test with a dropout rate of 66%." Everyone is shocked, yourself included. 'So, we're not even Genin yet? I might end up back at the academy?' "Anyway, I'm going to determine whether you pass or fail tomorrow at the training grounds. Bring your ninja equipment and meet at 5 a.m.!" You stood up. It was easier for you to think the further you got from the ground, even if it was just a little. No matter what, you would pass. Not for any particularly ambitious reason, but just because you refused to spend another year in a classroom. "Well, see you tomorrow! Oh, and don't eat breakfast - you'll throw up." With those words, Kakashi-sensei disappeared, leaving you and your team to wonder what the morning would bring.


	2. Early Mornings Can Ruin a Person's Day.

'Mornings are the worst,' you thought, scowling at the dark sky through your bedroom window. Once you were a hermit, you would sleep until at least noon. It was your solemn vow to yourself that someday you would just ignore morning entirely. You shoved your arms through the sleeves of your black, Chinese-style top and put your pants on like you were stomping down the sun. A bystander observing your violent dressing habits would be confused, and maybe a bit worried, but to you they were justified. Nothing good ever happened on a day you woke up early.  
You arrived at the training grounds with a few minutes to spare 'til five. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were already there. Sakura offered a half-hearted 'good morning' and Naruto muttered something close to a greeting. Everyone looked around for Kakashi-sensei, but none of you saw him anywhere. In the end, he didn't show up until around ten, and everyone had run out of patience. "Hi fellows. Good morning," he greeted, as if he were actually on time. You gave him your most irritable scowl.  
"If it had been a few minutes..." you growled. “Five hours is absolutely unforgiveable!" He just smiled and pointed back the way he came.  
"A black cat crossed my path, so..." he trailed off when he found himself on the receiving end of four angry glares, then cleared his throat and continued. “Let's move on." He walked over to where a timer sat on top of a stump and pushed the button on top. "Alarm set twelve p.m. Today's topic is to get one of these bells from me," he announced holding up three bells in one hand. You wondered if he counted them wrong. There were four of you, after all. "Whoever can't will have no lunch. I'm going to tie you there and eat lunch in front of you." 'So not eating breakfast had nothing to do with throwing up...' Everyone else seemed to come to the same conclusion.   
"But wait, why are there only three bells?" Sakura asked. Kakashi smiled.  
"Since there's only three, at least one will have to be tied to the log. That person will fail since he failed to complete the mission. The person will go back to the academy. It might be just one or all four. You can use your shuriken. You won't be able to get this unless you have the will to kill me." Throughout his explanation, he kept shaking the bells, as if he were trying to emphasize their importance.  
"But that's too dangerous, sensei!" Sakura yelled in protest. Naruto laughed nervously.  
"Yeah, that's right! You couldn't even dodge that chalk eraser!" He was obviously the type who tried to cover fear with jokes and boasting.  
"In society those who don't have many abilities tend to complain more." By that logic you and Sasuke were the best in the group. Of course Sasuke never complained at all, so he was number one. You didn't mind second place. There was less responsibility. "Just ignore the guy with the lowest score." Naruto growled at that comment. "We're going to start after I say 'ready start'." Without warning, Naruto yelled and charged Kakashi-sensei. In a matter of seconds, his attack was neutralized, the kunai he was holding pointed at the back of his neck. You had never even seen Kakashi move. "Don't get so hasty. I didn't say 'start' yet. But, it looks like you have the will to kill me now." He chuckled. "I think I can finally start liking you four. We're going to start. Ready, start!" Everyone flew for cover to prepare themselves to attack. You immediately positioned yourself in the branches of a tree at the edge of the clearing. This battlefield was to your advantage. In most circumstances, your skills were average at best, but in the woods, you could be deadly. You closed your eyes and listened to the way the wind blew in the branches of the trees. 'Two point four miles an hour, coming from the South-East.' Pulling several senbon needles from the pouch on your leg, you calculated the angle and force that would get them through the leaves and to Kakashi-sensei. When you were sure of your aim, you threw them. They flew through the air towards the back of his head, and for a moment, you thought he wouldn't detect them. But, at the last second, he stepped to the side and dodged them, one needle missing him by only a quarter of an inch. He looked directly at you and smiled. 'Time to move,' you thought. While you were leaping from branch to branch, moving further back into the forest so you could circle around and come up on the other side without being seen, you heard Naruto challenge Kakashi to a one on one duel for the bell. 'That Naruto really is an idiot...' You arrived at the edge of the clearing again, just in time to see Naruto's attempt to attack the sensei, who was reading a book called 'Makeout Paradise'. You wondered what kind of teacher he was supposed to be. He threw punches and kicks, but none of them made contact. Finally, Kakashi disappeared, only to show up crouching behind him with his fingers arranged in the seal of the tiger. 'Is he going to set him on fire?' you wondered.   
"A ninja should not let the enemy get behind him multiple times, idiot." You heard Sakura yell at him to run away. "You're too late. Hidden village of Konoha's secret taijutsu master art... a Thousand years of Pain!" Instead of setting Naruto on fire, Kakashi took his fingers... and jabbed them into Naruto's butt, sending him screaming into a nearby pond. You put a hand to your forehead. 'So the seal was a bluff...' You hadn't realized until now how strange your sensei was. But, even though his attack was idiotic and weird, you had to admit it took an extraordinary amount of skill it took to put yourself in the position to attack a ninja like that from behind. Even if the one being attacked was someone like Naruto. You came to the conclusion that you would need at least one other person to pull this off. Since Sakura annoyed you, and Naruto was at the bottom of a pond, you decided to look for Sasuke. You stretched out your senses, trying to ignore the sound of about seven Narutos attacking at once, until you found him and then took off in that direction. He nearly took your head off with his kunai when you landed beside him.  
"Calm down, it's me," you whispered. He glared at you. "Glare all you want, storm cloud, but I want to make a proposal." You rolled your eyes at the slightly worried look on his face. "Don't be an idiot, it's not that kind of proposal. I think we should work together to get the bells. Neither of us stands a chance any other way." Sasuke let out a snort of derision.  
"I'll get the bell on my own. Someone like you would only hold me back. Besides, don't you hate people who attract obnoxious people?" Without another word, he jumped from the branch and disappeared. 'Didn't think that comment would come back to bite me...' You considered approaching the other two, but when you looked back at the clearing, you saw that Naruto was now hanging by one leg from a tree. A moment later, you heard a shrill screech that sounded a lot like Sakura. It seemed those two were out of commission. But, that, meant that Sasuke was probably fighting Kakashi now. 'Just because he won't help voluntarily,' you decided, 'doesn't mean I can't use him.' A new plan formed in your head. While Sasuke was distracting Kakashi, you would get in, grab a bell, and get out as fast as you could. On your way to find Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei, you heard another scream. A while after that you saw Sakura lying on the ground with a weird expression on her face. Maybe she saw a spider. You put her out of your mind for the moment and continued in the direction of the battle you could now hear. When you arrived, you saw that Sasuke and Kakashi were fighting as you'd expected. Unlike with Naruto, it seemed that Kakashi could not read while he fought this time. 'Excellent,' you thought. That meant he had to concentrate on Sasuke, which meant it wouldn't be too hard to slip in and get what you wanted. You readied yourself. Just as your sensei was parrying a jab from a kunai, you leapt in behind him and snatched a bell. You jumped back about ten feet, then held it up and grinned.  
"Thank you for your help! It was a pleasure working with you." Both men were quite surprised that you got the bell. Sasuke didn't even realize he could have used that chance to get one himself before it was too late. Kakashi disappeared. You looked around, worried he was going to take back the bell you stole. Sasuke looked too. He was looking up at the sky to see if the teacher was above him when a hand shot out from the ground and grabbed his ankle.   
"Beneath you! Doton Shinjuuzanshu no Jutsu!" Kakashi yelled, then pulled Sasuke underground by his leg. All that was above the surface was his head. "This is the third ninja tactics know-how, Ninjutsu. How is it? Can't move, right? Looks like your talents are exceptional. But... they say that stakes that point out get driven back into the ground. As for you, ______, you took advantage of my battle with Sasuke to get a bell, which was quick thinking on your part. I'll see you at lunch." He nodded and left. You walked over to Sasuke and crouched down in front of him.  
"Useless, am I?" you asked in a cheerful tone. Just then, Sakura walked out of the bushes. The moment she saw Sasuke a horrified look crossed her face.  
"Now it's a severed head!" she screamed before passing out. You and Sasuke stared at her.  
"What's wrong with her?” he asked. You shrugged. There were too many things to name anyway. You sat beside Sasuke's 'severed' head until he managed to get himself above ground again, and waited while he shook Sakura awake. She, of course, immediately became hysterical and threw herself at him, so you took that as your cue to leave. Love idiocy might infect your brain and make you stupid, after all. You went back to the starting point and sat down on top of one of the logs to wait out the rest of the test. You only had to wait about a minute, because the bell rang and everyone came back. In the end, Naruto was the only one tied to a post, but all of you were starving.   
"Your stomachs are growling, eh?" Kakashi-sensei commented. "By the way, about the results of the training... none of you need to return to the academy." You were a little surprised. Nobody but you had gotten a bell.  
"What?" Sakura asked in wonder. "But all I did was faint. Was that ok?" Nobody said anything to deny it, so she assumed it was ok and started jumping up and down and squealing with joy.  
"Does mean that we four...?" Naruto trailed off, his joy and surprise making it hard to finish the sentence. Kakashi's face didn't seem like he was giving good news. You started to worry.  
"Yeah, you four... should quit being ninjas!" Shock made your mouth drop open. He was telling you to quit?  
"Quit being ninjas? What do you mean?" Naruto yelled as he kicked his legs. "We couldn't get a bell, but why do you have to say we should quit?! And ______ did get one! Why does she have to quit too?" Kakashi-sensei glared darkly.  
"Because you four are just kids who don't even deserve to be ninjas." Suddenly, Sasuke burst forth and charged Kakashi. Within seconds, he was pinned to the ground with his arm behind his back and his head pushed into the dirt by the sensei's foot. "See, you're just kids." Sakura clenched her fists.   
"Don't step on Sasuke-kun!" You thought he was getting off easy, since he attacked an elite ninja outside of an approved practice.   
"Do you guys think being a ninja is easy?" he asks with a look of scorn. "Why do you think we're training by breaking up into groups?"  
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.  
"In other words, four don't understand the answer of this test." Naruto looked confused, even more so than the rest.  
"The answer?"   
"That's right. The answer to determine whether you pass or fail."  
"We've been asking what that is..." Sakura was an idiot. Why would he give you the answer if the test was to find it out?  
"Geeze, are your brains all empty? You don't understand why you're all in a group?"  
"Expediency?" you offered. Naruto was getting frustrated.  
"So about four people being in a group?" he asked angrily.  
"Teamwork," Kakashi-sensei stated simply.   
"You mean, cooperate with each other?" 'Yes, Sakura, that is what teamwork means.' That girl always brought out the sarcastic side of you.  
"That's right. But it's too late even if you notice now. If all four of you came at me at once, you could have gotten bells. But that's too bad." Sakura stood up - she still had questions.  
"Why do we need to use teamwork when there's only three bells? If four people work hard to get it, one person will have to bite the bullet. A group conflict will occur instead of teamwork." You had to admit, she had a valid point.  
"Of course. This test tries to put you against each other. In this situation, we select those can prioritize teamwork over themselves. That was the purpose, but all of you were pathetic. Sakura! You cared more about Sasuke than Naruto, even though Naruto was right in front of you and you didn't know where Sasuke was. Naruto! All you did was work on your own. You," Kakashi stepped down on Sasuke's head as he spoke, "assumed that those three were only going to burden you and did everything yourself, even when ______ offered to work with you. As a result, she has a bell while you came back empty handed. And ______, you wrote off your other two team members as useless, and didn't even bother to ask them for help. You ended up using your comrade as bait. Missions are done in groups. It's true that ninjas need well-developed individual abilities, but it's teamwork that is much more important. An individual action that disrupts the teamwork will result in danger, or even death for the teammates. For example..." Kakashi grabs Sasuke's head and holds a kunai to his throat. "Sakura! Kill Naruto or Sasuke's going to die!" Naruto looks back and forth between Sakura and the two of them frantically. "That's what will happen."  
"Oh, you surprised me..." Sakura sighed with relief.  
"After getting someone taken hostage, you will be faced with a difficult decision, and someone will die." Kakashi-sensei removed the kunai from Sasuke's neck and stood up to walk over to a large black stone. "In every mission, you put your life on the line. Look at this... the numerous names carved into this stone. All these names are praised as heroes in this village." You felt like you recognized the stone, bit you weren't sure why. Naruto, however, focused in on the word 'heroes'.  
"I like that! I like that!" he exclaimed, kicking his legs. "I've decided that I'm going to have my name carved into that! A hero! A hero! I'm not going to die a useless death!" Right then, it occurred to you why you recognized that stone.  
"Don't say something like that," you whispered. "I hope for your sake that wish of yours never comes true." Naruto looked at you, confused.  
"Why not?"  
"Because they're not normal heroes," Kakashi explained.  
"So what kind of heroes were they? Come on, tell me!" You couldn't help but wish Naruto would just drop it. You may have remembered what that stone was, but you didn't want to have to hear it said.  
"Those who were K.I.A." You flinched.  
"K.I.A.?" Naruto asks, not getting the acronym.  
"Those who were killed action," Sakura said quietly. She didn’t say it quietly enough, in your opinion. Naruto was longer excited the prospect having his name on that stone. His legs kicking and he dropped his gaze to the ground.  
"This is an epitaph. The names of my friends are carved in here as well." Kakashi was quiet after that. You tried to keep from looking at that glossy black stone. You were afraid of accidentally reading the names of your parents. You were relieved when Kakashi spoke up again. "I'll give you one more chance. However, the battle for the bell will be much harsher after lunch. Eat lunch only if you are up to the challenge. But! Don't let Naruto eat. This is punishment for breaking the rules and trying to eat lunch early. If anyone tries to feed him," he paused to give you all a menacing look, "the person will immediately fail. I'm the rule here, got it?" With that, he left you to your lunch. You, Sasuke, and Sakura grabbed bentos, while Naruto watched enviously. His stomach growled.  
"I'm even if I don't eat! I'm ok!" It seemed to you like he was really just trying to convince himself of that. Sure enough, his stomach growled again.  
"Here," Sasuke said, holding his bento out to Naruto. Sakura started to protest.  
"Hey, Sasuke-kun! Sensei just said that..." she trailed off to look around nervously.  
"Don't worry. I don't sense him nearby," Sasuke reassured her. "We four are going to get the bells together. It's only going to be trouble if he's hungry." You nodded.  
"An individual stomach that disrupts the teamwork will result in danger or even death for the teammates," you said as a joke. Sakura looked conflicted for a moment. Eventually though, she came to a decision, and held out her lunch to Naruto.  
"Thanks..." Naruto said with tears of gratitude. Sakura blushed and looked away.  
"You don't have to thank me, just eat, hurry." Naruto strained against the ropes.  
"But, um..."  
"Ah, Sakura," you started, "he looks bit tied up, ya know?" Sakura jerked back when she realized what she'd have to do. "Hey, if you just give him the rice you've got on your chopsticks, I'll supply the meat." Sasuke looked around, checking for Kakashi.  
"Hurry, we don't know when he's going to return." Sakura reluctantly lifted the chopsticks to Naruto's mouth.  
"I'm only going to do it this once. You understand?" Naruto grinned and nodded.  
"I understand!" Now that that was out of the way, Sakura finally gave Naruto the bite. The moment he swallowed, there was an explosion. A huge smoke cloud filled the area, and Kakashi appeared from it with a roar.  
"You four!" Sakura and Naruto screamed while Sasuke braced against the strong wind and you held on to the post you were sitting on to keep from being blown away. "You four broke the rule. Are you prepared for punishment?" He made a series of hand signs, and black clouds gathered in the once clear sky with flashes of lightning and the sound of thunder. 'He's going to kill us?' you thought incredulously. "Any last words?"  
"But..." Naruto starter, before trailing off. Kakashi made a noise that seemed to say, 'go ahead, defend yourself - I dare you.' "But... but... but... You said... That's why these three..." He couldn't form complete sentences, because fear clouded his thoughts.  
"We're a four man team, right?" Sasuke said. You nodded in agreement.  
"Yeah, Naruto's stomach is just one quarter of our team's stomach, and when part of your stomach is hungry you have to feed it or the rest of your stomach will get messed up too!" Everyone looked at you with confusion. You didn't blame them. Even you had to admit that example didn't make much sense. Sakura's face changed to one of determination and she stood up from where she had been cowering in fear from the storm.  
"Yeah! We four are one!"  
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! That's right!" Naruto yelled, once again kicking his legs with excitement. Kakashi put a hand on his chin and slowly approached the four of you.  
"You four are one, huh?" He leaned in and his glare changed to a smile. "You pass!" Everyone stared at him, the information not really sinking in. "You pass," he repeated.  
"Pass? Why?" Sakura asked as the sky started to clear.   
"You four are the first. People I had previously were blockheads who just listened what I said." He stood up. "'Ninjas need to think beyond the normal.' In the world of ninjas, those who break the rules are called scum. But those who don't take care of their friends are even worse scum." You almost fell off your log in relief. You wouldn't have to go back to the academy, after all. Right there, you made up your mind to progress as quickly as possible. The faster you moved up, the sooner you could retire and become a hermit. "The training ends here. The seventh group will start doing missions tomorrow!" Kakashi-sensei struck a very dramatic 'thumb up' pose. You laughed and looked over at Sasuke. Your eyes met for a moment, and you almost thought he gave you a small, secret smile. You looked away, then looked down at your chest and glared at it. Your heart had better be beating so hard as a side effect of nearly being blown away earlier, and not because Sasuke smiled at you. The last thing you wanted was to develop a crush on a guy like that.


	3. Visitors From the Sand.

You walked a few steps behind Sakura and Sasuke, who were supporting Naruto on their shoulders. It had been a long day of menial tasks, and he had somehow managed to get beat up by a gardener, go over a waterfall, and get himself blown up all in the same day. "This is what you get for being reckless," Sakura chastised him. It was true - ever since you had all returned from the Land of the Mist, Naruto had been doing everything he could think of to one-up Sasuke.  
"You're a guy that needs help all the time," Sasuke scoffed. That sentence made Naruto angry, but it was true. If Sasuke hadn't saved him, he'd be floating off, face down, in the river. He tried to punch Sasuke as he walked off, but Sakura blocked him.  
"If you're going to go wild anymore, I'll finish you off!"  
"Teamwork has been really out of sync, lately." Kakashi-sensei sighed. Naruto used that as an excuse to blame Sasuke. You rolled your eyes at the predictability of it all. Sasuke, of course, just goaded Naruto on with a challenge. He was more restless than usual. You supposed it never occurred to him that there were people his age stronger than him, like that Haku. As for you, you tried to look at the encounter as a convenient learning experience. After all, you had managed to come up with a few new attacks. You didn't like to bother with rivalry, either. It produced idiots that were way to close to the love-idiots. A bird call resounded in the still air, but you dismissed it. What importance could a bird have? Kakashi, on the other hand, seemed to take it as some sort of signal.   
"Shall we call it quits for today?" he asked. "I have to go submit the mission report now." After he disappeared, Sasuke took off in the opposite direction. Sakura saw what she probably thought was a chance to get closer to him and chased after him, calling his name.  
"Hey, um, how does strengthening our teamwork now sound?" she asked once she caught up with him. 'Hard to fix the whole team with just the two of you," you thought sarcastically. If she was going to make excuses, they could at least be better than that. Sasuke obviously thought so, too.  
"You're the same as Naruto. If you have time to mind me, go practice a technique or two. To be honest, your abilities are lower than Naruto's." You seriously considered offering to buy him a meal right then. In your opinion, you couldn't have said it better yourself. 'I might change my mind about hating that guy.' But, despite your new respect for him, you couldn’t help feeling more relaxed once Sasuke was out of sight. You sighed. Ever since that time after the test when Sasuke smiled at you, you had been avoiding him a little... or a lot. You tried your best not to make eye contact and made sure you only spoke to him when it was absolutely necessary. If that smile really had made your heart beat like that last time, you had to make sure it never happened again. As a result, you came across as very cold and aloof. But cold and aloof was better than stupid and desperate.   
"Sakura-chan! Forget about Sasuke and let's go train together!" Right about then, a rectangle showed up. More specifically, a rectangle shaped 'rock' that someone must have thought was a disguise. You had been about to leave, but it looked like something interesting might happen, so you decided to stick around and hopped up onto the fence to sit down. It seemed to be after Naruto, since it followed him back and forth, up and down the street. After trying to run from it for a while, he stopped suddenly and turned around to point an accusing finger at it. "A square rock with two holes like that does not exist! It's so obvious!"  
"I should have expected that from the man whom I have high hopes for and is also my rival!" said the 'rock'. 'Oh, so it talks,' you thought, crossing your legs and resting your chin in your hand. You had to move that hand to shield your eyes when the 'rock' started glowing. With a loud bang and three puffs of smoke, it blew open. When the smoke cleared, you could see three elementary school aged children with goggles and scarfs sitting there and coughing.   
"Hey, you used too much gunpowder!" the one in the middle complained. As soon as they realized Naruto was still watching them, they scrambled to their feet.  
"The one who possesses the sex appeal of an adult, and the female ninja from the senior group, Moegi!" announced the girl with the exceptionally tall orange pigtails as she struck a pose.  
"The one who loves dividing numbers, Udon." This one was a boy with dull brown hair and glasses, and a dripping nose. 'Udon... like noodles?' you wondered silently, suppressing a snicker.  
"This village's number one genius ninja, Konohamaru!" yelled the last one. He was the one that complained about the gunpowder, and wore a long green scarf. You recognized him as the grandson of the Hokage. 'He probably wants to be Hokage someday... I think it would be a bit too redundant for the Hokage to be named after the town, though. It's definitely too obvious.' The three children did a group pose, and announced themselves as the Konohamaru Corps.   
"As I thought, it was the three of you." Naruto was noticeably unimpressed. You spaced out for a while and ignored the rest of the conversation. It seemed like everything fun that was going to happen already had. You couldn't help wondering why this kind of stupid thing didn't bother you, but you wanted to slam your head into a brick wall when you heard or saw Sakura making a fool of herself chasing after Sasuke. Speaking of Sakura, she was currently beating up the kid with the scarf. You wondered what he did, and why Naruto was in the fence on the other side of the street. After throwing a few punches, she walked off in a huff. The two who were assaulted stood up, holding their heads.  
"That ugly-wide-forehead girl... is she really a girl?" the kid whined. You snorted and clapped your hands over your mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. Unfortunately for the kid, Sakura didn't have a sense of humor like you did. She chased them down the road, probably to kill them. You wondered if you should stop her, but that decision was made for you when Konohamaru ran face first into a huge guy with purple paint covering his face. He looked down at the kid, who had fallen backwards from the impact.  
"That hurt." The words were normal enough, but the way he said them sounded threatening. He grabbed Konohamaru by his scarf and brought him up to eye level. "That hurt, brat." This was getting dangerous. You decided to move closer so you could intervene if things got out of hand. You would stay out of it for now, though.  
"Stop it, we're going to get scolded later," the blonde girl next to him warned, looking around as if she expected someone to pop up out of nowhere and scold them right then. Sakura stepped forward.  
"I'm sorry, I was joking around so..." she trailed off, unable to think of anything to say.  
"Let go of that hand!" Naruto yelled. 'What hand... it's a scarf.' You shook your head. Now wasn't the time to worry about something like that.  
"But I want to play around a little before some noisy people come."   
"Let go," Konohamaru choked out, kicking the older guy. The grip on his scarf tightened, and it became even harder for him to breathe. Naruto charged with a yell in an attempt to attack, but before he even got close, he was stopped by some invisible force and thrown back. The time for watching had passed. You shifted into motion. After assessing the abilities of the attacker, you concluded that he was a puppet master. If you looked at him a certain way, you could see the chakra strings attached to his fingers. The only way to get close was to take him by surprise. You leaned forward, then disappeared from the branch you were watching from to reappear crouching on his shoulders. He made a surprised noise and almost dropped Konohamaru.   
"Mind if I play around too?" you asked. He looked up at you with a glare.  
"I don't think this is a game you want to play, kid," he growled. Faster than you could react to, he reached back and grabbed you by your right arm, nearly wrenching it from its socket as he threw you to the ground, all the while managing to keep a tight hold on Konohamaru. He was about to bring one of his large, black clad feet down on your stomach when a rock shot out from a tree, hitting his wrist and making him jump back and drop the kid at the same time.  
"What do you think you're doing in another's village?" You gasped and looked up. 'Sasuke!' You hadn't even noticed him there until now. He was sitting in a tree, tossing a pebble up and down in one hand. Konohamaru took the chance to escape and ran back to the group while you just lay in the middle of the road and stared up at him in surprise. "Get lost," Sasuke warned. He squeezed the rock with one hand, then opened it to let a stream of dust fall out. You had to admit he could be pretty cool sometimes.  
"Hey, come down, kid," the large stranger called out to him. "I hate kids like you, who think they're so clever." He reached behind himself and pulled a strange object down from his back.  
"You're going to use Karasu?" asked the blonde girl, shocked. 'What's a karasu?' There was no way it could be a good thing.  
"Kankuro, stop."   
"Who..." You looked around, trying to find where the voice had come from. You found him in same tree as Sasuke. He was short, with bright red hair, the kanji for 'love' tattooed where his non-existent eyebrows should have been, and green eyes that had black rings around them, as if he hadn't slept a day in his life. His clothing was baggy, but somehow flattering, and there was a giant gourd strapped to his back. He was also standing upside down on the underside of a branch. Overall, a strange character. His strangeness made your heart beat faster. 'What the hell?' you asked yourself. Your heart almost never changed its pace... except for the time Sasuke smiled at you. 'Wait, I'm currently denying that that happened. Besides, I've never even seen this guy before! Not to mention he looks like the type to kill a person just because they aren't already dead.' You must have hit your head when the big guy, Kankuro, apparently, threw you on the ground. Speaking of that guy, he actually looked scared.  
"You're disgrace to our village."  
"G-Gaara..." Kankuro said, laughing slightly to mask his fear. Now you were really worried. He didn't seem like the kind of person who normally stuttered. You sat up, then got to your feet. You didn't want to be in a position of weakness with such a scary guy around.  
"You're a disgrace to our village," he repeated. "Why do you think we came all the way here to Konoha?"  
"L-listen, Gaara, these guys started it!" Stuttering again. Making excuses, too. You didn't like how this was turning out.  
"Shut up," Gaara told him, making him 'tch' and take a step back. 'Definitely not good.' "I'll kill you." Kankuro held up his hands, as if to ward him off.  
"I was at fault. Sorry. I'm really sorry." Gaara looked away from him, turning his head towards Sasuke.  
"Excuse them, you guys." You were more than a little surprised when he dissolved into sand and reconfigured himself on the ground. You gasped, and his eyes flicked over to meet yours. "You shouldn't land in such a bad place next time," he told you in a monotone. His glare, however, was turned towards Kankuro. 'How long was he there?' He was definitely a suspicious person. "Let's go. We didn't come here to fool around." He began to walk off, and the other two followed him. Sakura took a step forward.  
"Wait a minute!" You looked at her incredulously. What made her think she should stop the scary people when they were about to leave without killing you? "Judging by your forehead protectors, you're from the Hidden Village of the Sand, right? The Country of Fire and the Country of Wind have an alliance, but a treaty prevents ninja from entering each other’s countries without permission. State your purpose. If you don't, I'll make you." You almost laughed at that. It was comical to you that she thought she had the ability to make those people do anything. Naruto hadn't even been able to touch the guy that was picking on Konohamaru, and that guy was so afraid of Gaara he couldn't even speak without stuttering in his presence. She must have been feeling big in the britches because Sasuke was there. The blonde was the one to answer her.  
"The answer is closer to you than you think. Don't you know anything?" She pulled out a slip of paper with her picture and information on it. "This is a traffic pass. As you guessed we're Genins from the Hidden Village of the Sand from the Country of Wind. We came to this village to take the Chuunin selection exam." You hadn't realized it was that time of year already. It was unlikely you would be taking it, since you had just barely started being Genin, but it would be interesting to see what kind of people would come to the village to take it. Hopefully they weren't all as scary as Gaara - your heart could only handle so much. 'In a fear way, not a hey-that-guy-is-scary-but-I-find-him-strangely-attractive way. Because I definitely don't. I also don't think Sasuke is attractive. Nope, I am oblivious to the charms of men. I'll avoid love forever and when I retire I'll become a hermit in the mountains, never to be plagued by human interaction ever again.' You were so busy convincing yourself that your heart didn't have the capacity to feel love that you missed most of the conversation. When you came to, the three Sand Nin were walking away again.  
"Hey, you there," Sasuke called out to them.   
"Me?" the blonde asked excitedly. Sasuke shook his head.  
"No, the one next to you the gourd." The person he was referring to stopped and turned around.  
"Gaara of the Sand. I am also interested in you. What is your name?" Sasuke made a face that was halfway between a glare and a smirk.  
"Uchiha Sasuke." Gaara paused for a moment.  
"...And you?" he asked, turning his head to look in your direction. You were slightly taken aback. What would he want your name for? You got thrown on the ground by a guy who was scared of him, and had to be saved from getting your guts stomped flat. You answered him, though, because it seemed unwise not to.  
"_______ _______." He nodded once and started to turn away again, Naruto stepped forward.  
"Hey, hey! What about me?" he asked, jabbing his thumb towards his chest.   
"I'm not interested," Gaara replied without skipping a beat. With that, he and his companions left. Sasuke smirked in anticipation. You guessed he planned on fighting that guy. You really didn't recommend it. Naruto, on the other hand, was somewhat depressed. You decided that now was as good a time as any to take your leave, and went off in the direction of your favorite tree. An afternoon nap in the forest was a good way to conclude such a tiring day. You might even stay there overnight.


	4. The Chuunin Exams Begin!

You put your head between your knees, trying to drown out Sakura's voice. You and the rest of team seven were waiting on the bridge for Kakashi-sensei to arrive, and Sakura and Naruto were both complaining about how late he was. You wished he would show up on time too, of course, but your reasons had nothing to do with "How is he going to compensate a girl who woke up late and had to give up blow drying her hair?". You sighed and leaned back. Sasuke was leaning on the bridge railing next to you, and also seemed to be irritated by those two.  
"Why are they in such a perky mood in the morning?" he grumbled. You nodded in agreement. Perky was the last word to describe you right now. You had woken up at about four this morning, upside down, a good fifty feet off the ground. It turned out to have been a bad idea to spend the night at the top of a tree without anything to tie you to it.  
"It must be the nature of monkeys to be energetic at all times," you commented dryly. That earned you a smirk of amusement from your raven-headed companion in misery. Finally, your teacher showed up, crouching on top of a beam above the bridge.  
"Hello, gentlemen. I got lost on the path known as life today..."  
"A lie!" Sakura and Naruto cut him off. He jumped down onto the ground and held a finger to his lips... well, his mask.  
"I'll get to the point. I recommended you all to the Chuunin selection exam, so... here, take these applications." He held out four slips of paper. You just stared at them. You had thought he would at least make you all wait until next year to take them. "However, the recommendation does not force you to take it. You can decide if you want to take it or not." Well at least it was optional. 'Eh, I might as well take it. No point in missing out on opportunities.'  
"Yes! I love you, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto yelled, running up to your teacher and hugging him.  
"Cut it out, get off of me," Kakashi said, trying to pry Naruto off. Once he succeeded, he continued with his explanation. "Only those who wish to take it are to sign the applications, and five days after that, get to school by three p.m. and go to room 301. That is all," he concluded. You all took your recommendations and Naruto giggled excitedly. You were pretty interested in seeing what kinds of people showed up to take the exam. They would come from all over so there would be a good variety. Dismissed, you went to turn in your application along with the rest of your team. "The Chuunin exam, huh? There must be a lot of strong guys." Naruto was probably the happiest about this turn of events. It was all he would talk about lately. Sasuke was definitely anticipating getting to fight Gaara. You mostly wanted to observe. Lots of interesting people were showing up. Everyone in your group seemed to be off in their own world, so you took the chance to leave without catching anyone's attention. You wandered around the town for a while, then went to the weapons shop you liked to frequent. You needed a new pair of sai, since your last ones broke on the mission in the rain country. After you bought them, you went to the woods to get used to their feel. Instead of the training grounds, where lots of people would probably be, you went to the private practice area you had set up for yourself near your tree. Once you were there, you went through all the basic stances and attacks, then through the more advanced ones. You were in the middle of practicing an aerial strike when a shuriken whizzed by your face, missing you by only two centimeters. You twisted in mid-air towards the place the attack had come from, to see a suspicious looking man in a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak. He reached for another weapon, but you threw a kunai that pinned his sleeve to the tree behind him.  
"You should never have attacked me in this place," you told him. This forest was where you practiced, where you knew every inch of your surroundings, where even the smallest ant couldn't escape your notice. The assailant wrenched the knife from his sleeve, then charged you, using it as his own weapon. You brought up your sai and deflected his attack with one, while you cut the straps of his weapons bag with the other. It fell to the ground and you kicked it several yards away, so he wouldn't be able to get it without leaving a huge hole in his defense. He lunged with the kunai again, and this time you completely disarmed him, the knife landing point down in the dirt behind you. As suddenly as he had appeared, the attacker disappeared, leaving you wondering what on earth that had been about. 'Well, at least I got to practice with a real opponent," you thought, and shrugged it off as nothing but something weird that probably had to happen sooner or later anyway.

Five days later, met up with your team to go to the school and take the first test of the Chuunin exam. You arrived after everyone else, and you noticed Sakura seemed more subdued than usual. You would think that would be a good thing for you, but in reality it troubled you more than anything else. 'I guess being on a team made me actually care what happens to her.' You all entered the building and went to the floor marked '3' to find a crowd outside room 301. "A Chuunin is a commander of a squad. Its the commander's responsibility for failing any missions and the death of their subordinates." The person speaking was one of two men standing in from of the door to the exam room. 'Maybe they're explaining the purpose of the exam,' you thought. "And to think you kids are trying to... What's the matter with sifting out those who aren't going to pass anyway?" You were wrong. It turned out they were just bullies. Sasuke started walking towards them, so you and the rest of the team followed suit.  
"That's a sound argument. But I will pass," he told them. "And undo this field you've created using an illusion technique. I want to go to the third floor."  
"Oh, noticed?" the two in front of the door said.  
"Sakura, how about you? You should've noticed first. You're illusionary technique know-how is the best in our squad." You were slightly annoyed that Sakura's skills were being rated over your own, but the truth was that you hadn't noticed at all. You really only payed attention to your surroundings when you were outside. You didn't like the indoors so you tried to ignore them. 'Oh well, at least I have the analyzation skills.' As long as you had something, it was all good as far as you were concerned.  
"Sasuke-kun... thank you," she said, dazzled by praise from the object of her obsession. "Of course I noticed it. This is the second floor." As soon as she announced it, the genjutsu on the room sign dispersed and the room number changed to '201'.   
"You're pretty good," admitted one of the guys. "But just being able to detect it isn't enough..." he launched himself into a spinning kick attack on Sasuke. Sasuke moved to attack as well, but just as the two were about to collide, some guy in a green leotard jumped in and stopped both of their kicks. He let go and everyone took a step back. You stared at him. There was something there that bothered you. 'Too round...' You looked harder. 'So, so round... why so round?' He noticed your stare and asked you why you were looking at him like that. You were so absorbed in your scrutiny that you didn't think before you answered him as bluntly as possible.  
"Your eyes are too damn round!" you blurted out. Sasuke placed his forehead in the palm of his hand, and Sakura nodded enthusiastically to agree with you.  
"He's definitely too unique." They guy slumped over in defeat. Apparently he had had his eye on Sakura.  
"Hey, you there. Identify yourself." You looked to the person who just spoke. He had long brown hair, and his eyes were a pale purple. Je didn't have pupils. The person he was talking to was Sasuke. 'Of course it is, who else does anyone ever talk to?'  
"You're supposed to identify yourself before you ask," he replied. You smiled a little, recognizing that as the same thing you told Kakashi-sensei when he first became your teacher. Sasuke glanced back at you with a knowing look. You glared down at your stupid, malfunctioning heart after he turned around. It was beating faster far too often these days. 'I don't like him! How could I when his hair is in the shape of a duck's butt?' It was definitely impossible. You wondered if you were a tsundere. You weren't of course - that implied you were pretending not to like him. 'I am most certainly NOT pretending!'  
"You're a rookie, aren't you? How old are you?" the guy asked. Obviously he was used to getting answers when he asked questions, so when Sasuke told him he wasn't obligated to provide them, it really ticked him off. Sasuke turned away from him and back to your group.  
"Alright, now that someone has asked Sasuke his name and ignored Naruto, our daily cliché is fulfilled and we can move on," you announced. "Let's go to the test room." Everyone nodded and followed you in the direction of the real room 301, Sasuke looking amused and Naruto looking depressed. You were walking through a room with pillars, and had planned to keep walking until you got to the test room, but instead you were stopped by the round-eyes guy calling out to Sasuke.  
"You there with the sharp eyes. Wait." You all turned around to see him looking down at you from a balcony. "Will you fight me right here, right now?" You sighed. If he was going to make a weird scene, you'd rather just avoid it. You let your team know that you would be waiting outside and then kept walking the way you were going before. There was a nice little garden out there, and you thought maybe you could get a quick nap in before the test. You found yourself a place under a sakura tree and closed your eyes. It wasn't long before you were unconscious. A few minutes later, you woke up and found yourself staring right into a pair of black rimmed sea green eyes. You jumped from shock, then shook your head to recover yourself.  
"Why did you let Kankuro throw you?" For a moment, you didn't understand the question. Then, you remembered the incident a week ago. You had landed on the shoulders of a bully named Kankuro, but were thrown from them shortly after. You didn't let him throw you, though; it just happened. You told Gaara as much, but he didn't look like he believed you. You took the opportunity to ask him why he had asked for your name back then, since you were wondering. "Because landing on a person's shoulders requires more stealth than throwing a rock." Before you could say anything else, he disappeared and your team came out to the garden to get you. Naruto wouldn't stop talking about giant turtles and bowl cuts, so you tuned him out to think.  
"Hey, ______, did something happen while we were in there?" Sasuke asked. He was standing close enough that his arm brushed against yours.   
"Oh, nothing much," you answered. "I just a little chat with Gaara, but it didn’t make much sense." Sasuke stiffened next to you. You knew that because he was close enough for you to feel it.  
"Gaara was here?" he asked. He sounded like he was unhappy that he missed the appearance. More importantly, when he spoke you could feel his breath hitting your cheek. You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye. He looked good from that angle, since the light made his hair look like it was glowing a bit. He looked down and met your gaze with a question in his eyes. You immediately realized what you'd been doing, and stepped to the side to put some distance between the two of you as you walked.  
"Nothing, there was just a piece of fuzz in your hair. But you as well just leave it. It's the same either way." He shook his head in a way that said he thought you were crazy. You probably were.


	5. The Cheating Test.

If you didn't know any better, you would think that looking creepy was one of the requirements to sign up for the exam. The reason being that every person in the crowded room had an excessively shady appearance. They glared a lot, too. You hated being glared at, so you returned the look with twice as much strength. "Don't give them a dirty look, ______!" Sakura chastised, grabbing your arm. "You'll make enemies, and they all look really strong." You shook her off and turned your back on the room.  
"I doubt even half of them are worth being worried over." You knew you shouldn't provoke people, but you were on edge right now. Why did Sasuke have to affect you so much? There had to be something you could do about it. For now, though, the only thing to do was try to ignore any changes and hope they would change right back. It was already taking up too much of your mind, and you hated that. You scanned the room to see if anyone you knew was there, and found the group of sand nin sitting together at one of the desks on the south side of the room. You considered saying hi, just because you recognized them, but decided against it. You didn't like Kankuro, and you weren't sure how to go about speaking with someone like Gaara. It may have just been your imagination, but you didn't think he was much of a conversationalist. It most likely wasn't your imagination. Just then, Gaara looked up and saw you staring. You jumped, embarrassed at being caught, and nodded slightly in acknowledgement. He nodded back, then turned around to watch the front of the room again. Sasuke had noticed the little exchange between the two of you, and looked at you with a slight frown on his face. "What's wrong, storm cloud? If you look at people like that all the time you'll scare everyone away." He just shook his head at the nickname you'd given him and turned away. As you were shrugging off his weird behavior, you saw a flash of light blonde hair streak across the room, directly towards Sasuke. 'I’m surprised that girl made it,' you thought, rolling your eyes at Yamanaka Ino, who was now wrapped around your duck-butt haired teammate.   
"Sasuke, you're late!" she squealed. "I've been eagerly waiting for you ever since I heard that I could see you for the first time in a long time!" You couldn't help rolling your eyes again, this time at her failing attempt to use a 'seductive' tone. Sakura, on the other hand, was about to kill someone. Hopefully Ino.  
"Get away from Sasuke-kun! You Ino-pig!" she yelled, about to burst a vein.  
"Oh my, it's you, Sakura-chan! Your forehead is wide and you're still ugly... as usual!" Ino's voice was getting on your nerves, so you wandered off to look around the room. You found a window and stood near it so you could see outside. Although you hadn't been inside for that long, you already missed the feeling of the wind in your hair. Letting out a slightly tired sigh, you closed your eyes and leaned your head against the window. 'If there's time for Sakura and Ino to make idiots out of themselves over a guy neither of them has a ramen cup's chance in Naruto's cabinet with, then you had time for another short nap.  
"Quiet down! You punks!" An explosion at the front of the room jerked you out of a dream in which you jousted against the Kazekage while riding an ostrich. You looked to the area of the explosion to find that the source of the explosion was a tall man wearing a black bandana and a long trench coat. "I am the examiner of the first test of the Chuunin selection exam, Morino Ibiki. You three from the Hidden Village of Sound," he pointed to the back of the room, "don't think you can do anything you want before the exam. Do you want us to fail you already?" You followed his finger and saw a group of sound nin standing near your team and the others from your class. It seemed you'd missed something while you were sleeping. 'Maybe I'll ask about it later...'  
"I'm sorry, I was excited because this is my first exam." The guy who spoke reminded you of a mummy porcupine. His face was wrapped in bandages, and he had a large straw-looking bush on his back. 'Some people wear really weird things,' you commented to yourself. The examiner gave a short laugh before continuing.   
"This is a good chance to say this. You are not allowed to fight each other during the exams unless given permission by the examiners. Even if permission is given, you are not allowed to kill the other. Pigs who go against me will fail immediately, understand? We will now begin the first exam of the Chuunin selection exam. Turn in your applications, take one of these number tags, and sit where the number tells you to. Then we will pass out the papers for the written exam." You heard Naruto scream somewhere in the back. There was a large amount of shuffling as people got in line to receive their numbers. You handed your application over to the proctor, who gave you a slip of paper with the number 37 on it, and you went to your assigned seat. After a few minutes, everyone was seated with a piece of paper in front of them. You didn't really like written tests - all your skills had to do with wilderness survival and things like that. You looked around the room to see how your teammates were taking it. Sasuke and Sakura seemed confident enough, but by the way Naruto was clutching his head in despair, you guessed he wasn't expecting to get 100%. The sound of chalk tapping on the blackboard brought your attention back to the front of the room. "The first exam has a few important rules. I will not accept any questions, so listen carefully. The first rule is that you each will be given ten points at the start." The tapping of chalk echoed throughout the room as he wrote the rules on the board. "The written exam consists of ten questions, and each is worth one point. This test is a deduction based test. If you get one problem wrong, you will get one point deducted. If you get three problems wrong, your points will be reduced to seven." It seemed straight forward enough to you, although you didn't understand how the deduction system made it any different. Three out of ten wrong is the same as seven out of ten right. The only change you could see was that it made the test feel more pessimistic. "Second rule, the pass fail decision will be determined by your team's total points." You frowned. 'That could be a problem... I hate writing and Naruto is an idiot.'  
"Wait!" you heard Sakura yell somewhere behind you. "Your team's total points? What?" You wondered if she had a compulsive need to call attention to herself.  
"Shut up!" the examiner shouted at her. "There's a reason for this. Just shut up and listen." You chuckled to yourself behind your hand. Even if you had randomly started caring about her a little bit along the way, you still enjoyed seeing her put in her place. "Now that you know, let's move on to the next rule. If an examiner determines that you cheated, or do something similar during the test, each action will cause you to lose two points. In other words, there will be people who will be forced to leave this place without their tests being graded." It was kind of odd to you that you only lost two points for cheating, rather than just getting kicked out of the test. 'What does writing on paper have to do with being a ninja anyway? This test is weird. Unless...' "Those who try to cheat without thinking carefully will only hurt themselves." That sentence affirmed your suspicions. The key phrase was 'without thinking carefully'. So, as long as you thought carefully about it, cheating should be ok. 'Now that I know... I've got this.'  
"We'll check you at any time," one of the watchers said. The smile on his face made it look like he was looking forward to failing a few people.  
"You are all trying to become Chuunin. If you are a ninja, act like a first rate one. Also, if anyone gets a zero, everyone on that team will fail," the examiner announced. That put a bit of a damper on your hopes for success. "The last problem will be given forty five minutes after the exam begins. You have one hour for the exam." He paused as the second hand on the clock neared the next hour. The moment it reached its destination, he shouted, "Begin!" You flipped over your paper and scanned over the problems. They were definitely harder than any Genin would be able to answer. 'There must be someone in the room who already knows the answers.' You pulled a dried leaf from your pocket. It was crinkly enough by now that you could turn it to a powder, which was exactly what you planned to do. You brought the leaf to your mouth and infused it with as much chakra as you could pack in without destroying it. Then, you crushed it in one hand and blew the remaining dust out across the room. It was caught on the draft near the ceiling and distributed over the test takers. Everything it settled on became a part of your consciousness. Most of the papers your leaf dust touched belonged to people who still didn't know what to write. One paper, however, was steadily collecting answers. You cut your connection with every piece of leaf but the one on that paper and started writing. When you had the answers copied, you laid down your pencil and checked on how the rest of your team was doing. Sasuke and Sakura looked like they had figured out how the test worked, but Naruto was freaking out. 'Don't figure it out,' you silently pleaded with him. You knew Naruto, and you knew that if he tried to cheat he would get caught. He was too straight forward of a guy to do it discreetly enough. There was no way he could answer the questions on the paper, but if he could just get the last question right you would all be safe. You folded your fingers together and rested your chin on them, closing your eyes and sighing. There was nothing you could do but wait for the last question. The sound of a kunai hitting wood caused you to open your eyes. You snapped your gaze to the place it struck. A guy with hair that sort of reminded you of Kakashi-sensei's, but brown, shot out of his seat.   
"Wh-what is the meaning of this?" he yelled. 'This' was the deadly weapon now lodged in his test paper.  
"You screwed up five times. You fail." The one who failed him was the same watcher who had looked so excited about doing just that. "Teammates of his, get out of here right now." Two other guys stood up, looking resigned about it, and left the room without an argument. The guy who failed looked like he was about to pass out, but he eventually left the room too. After that, people steadily began to be asked to leave the test room. One guy was dragged out, kicking and screaming. You just waited and hoped that one of your team wouldn't be called.  
"Hey, man, do you have any proof that I cheated five times?" one of the failed asked, slamming his hand down on his desk. "Are you all really able to watch over this many people?" Less than a second passed before he was pinned against the wall with one of the watchers' arms against his neck, effectively cutting off his protests. 'A throat punch will do that to you,' you thought.  
"Listen up," the watcher said. "We are Chuunin that were chosen for this exam. Elites, so to say. We won't miss a single thing you do." He removed his arm, allowing the guy to fall to the ground. "My strength is the proof." People continued to fail, including one of the people sitting next to you. A few minutes went by in that way. You were tapping your fingers on your desk, one of your favorite songs in Morse code, when you felt something get in your eye. You rubbed at it, but it wouldn't get out. Then, all of a sudden, it was just gone. You ran a finger under your eye and looked at it. 'Sand...' you glanced over to where Gaara was sitting. He was writing the answers down very quickly. You gave him an irritated look. 'He didn't have to blind me,' you complained. 'I wouldn't have called him out or anything.' Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his brother get up. You couldn't remember his name. He was put into handcuffs by a strange looking ninja and led out of the room. 'So we get handcuffed if we want to go to the bathroom? But... only five minutes till the tenth question. That guy had better hurry if he doesn't want to miss it.' You close your eyes again and wait. Five minutes later, the examiner spoke.  
"Alright! I will now give the tenth problem!" Everyone stopped writing and turned their attention to the front. "But, before that, I must say... there will be one special rule for this last question." You leaned forward in your seat. Just then, Gaara's brother returned to the room. 'Just in time,' you thought. The only reason you cared was that you'd like to see Gaara fight. It had to be interesting to watch. "You're lucky," the examiner told him. "Your puppet show didn't have to go to waste." Puppet? You looked more closely at the ninja who was leading him back into the room. 'So that guy was a puppet, huh?' You had to admit it was pretty well made. "Oh well, sit down." Once he returned to his seat, the examiner continued. "I will now explain. This is... a hopeless rule. First, you are all going to choose if you want to take this tenth problem or not." He paused. 'A hopeless rule... and a choice. Isn't the choice a hope, though?'   
"Choose?" asked a girl with four blonde pigtails. You recognized her as the girl that was there when the big guy was bullying Konohamaru. "So what happens if we don't take the tenth problem?"   
"If you choose not to take it, your points will be reduced to zero. In other words, you will fail. Your other teammates will fail along with you." You gripped your clasped hands tighter. 'So it's do or die, then,' you thought. Indignant shouts rose up from various places about the room, saying things like 'what's that about?' or 'of course we're going to take it!’ "And here is the other rule," he said, ignoring them. "If you choose to take it and you get it wrong, you will lose the privilege to take the Chuunin exam forever!" Blood seemed to stop flowing to your brain for a second. As you struggled to gather your scattered mind, the phrase 'i could be a Genin forever' ran through your head over and over. In the back of your mind, you noticed a guy from your class, Kiba, stand up and shout something, but you didn't know what he said. Finally, you got fed up and shook your head sharply. You would take the question. 'If I don't know the answer this year, I probably won't next year, either. Besides, if I take it again I'll have to answer the question then, too. I'll never get anywhere if I refuse it every time.' Once you made up your mind, you felt strangely calm. You could listen again now, and were just in time to catch the middle of the examiner's sentence. "...not confident can choose not to take it, and take the exam next year or the year after that." He ended his explanation with a sinister laugh. You thought it was a nice touch. You had already made your mind up to take the question, so all you could do now was hope that the rest of your team would do the same. "Let's begin. Those who will not be taking the tenth question, raise your hands. After we confirm your numbers, we will have you leave." A few moments passed, and then people began to raise their hands. You just tried to stare a hole through the front wall. You would pass this test. You didn't pay much attention to the rest of the room until you saw Naruto raise his hand. 'No!' You snapped your head in his direction, putting your full focus on that hand. Suddenly, he slammed his hand back down on the desk and stood up.  
"Screw you!" he yelled. "I'm not going to run away! I'll take this problem! Even if I'm a Genin forever, I'll become a Hokage no matter what anyway!" Naruto sat back down and you let out the breath you'd been holding in relief. You could take the question.   
"I will ask one more time," said the examiner. "This is the choice that will impact life. If you want to quit, now is the chance.   
"I'm not going take back my words," Naruto replied. "That's my way of the ninja!" You grinned. 'Well said, Naruto!' His outburst seemed to give everyone else more confidence, and nobody else quit. The examiner nodded to the ninja that were sitting around the edges of the room.  
"Nice determination. Then, for the first exam, everyone here... passes!"


	6. The Second Exam Begins!

A chilly wind blew your hair to the side as you stood with all the people who had passed the first test. In front of you was a tall, chain-link fence that had a ‘forbidden area’ sign on it.  
“W-what is this place?” Naruto stuttered.  
“This is the place where the second exam will take place, the 44th training area also known as the Forest of Death,” a woman in a long, tan trench coat explained. You looked warily at the enormous trees on the other side of the fence. Sure you were a forest person, and the idea of such tall trees excited you, but you also realized that in a huge forest lived huge animals. It was likely a very dangerous place.  
“The Forest of Death?” Naruto repeated apprehensively. You sympathized with his reluctance to trust a forest with that kind of name. Just then, the rectangular rock from a few days ago showed up again. Same as before, Naruto was chased back and forth until he turned and pointed at the rock. “Hey, Konohamaru!” he shouted. “What are you doing here?”  
“I should have expected that from the man I look up to,” the rock replied. “Good job detecting me!” Once again, the rock glowed and exploded. Naruto was just as surprised as before for some reason. You just shook your head and turned back to the forest. Since you had already seen this before, it failed to amuse you a second time. Instead, you contemplated what your team’s first move should be when you got into the forest. Finding water would likely be at the top of the list. You would also have to instruct Naruto and Sakura on the best way to remain undetected in a forest setting so you wouldn’t be constantly getting attacked. As for your own ability to survive and stay hidden, you were fairly confident. ‘It’s basically the same as my forest, just on a larger scale,’ you thought. ‘Actually, while I’m here I should scout it out as a potential hermit forest. Who would come to bother me in a place called the Forest of Death?’  
“Hey there, what are you doing?” You looked over to see the proctor walking up to Naruto and his fan group.  
“Konohamaru wants to do an exclusive for his school newspaper or something,” Naruto replied. ‘So that’s what they’re here for...’ you remarked.  
“Oh…” the Proctor gasped as if remembering something, then grinned and rubbed the back of her head. “Yes, I forgot that Hokage-sama mentioned something like that.” She turned to the rest of the crowd. “Okay, we’re going to have a 10 minute break now. If you are asked any questions, just concede and cooperate quietly.”  
“What the…” Naruto gave her a weird look. You just shrugged. It wasn’t like you had anything to hide.  
“Naruto, I’m counting on you,” Konohamaru announced. Naruto grinned.  
“Fine, I’ll tell you all the good things about me!” You decided you might as well pay attention. ‘It probably won’t take more than ten seconds, anyway.’ In the end, Naruto introduced everyone on the team. It seemed he had become the spokesman, or maybe the mascot. You would have preferred a panda. Of course, Naruto introduced himself in the best possible light, and Sasuke in the worst. He also introduced Sakura as the girl who was in love with him, which made you want to roll your eyes and laugh at the same time. You were introduced as the second best ninja after Naruto who he liked because you didn’t like Sasuke. The part about Naruto being better than you was irksome, but you appreciated the ‘doesn’t like Sasuke’ since it made you feel more confident about the success of your efforts to make it clear you had no romantic interest in him. It was very irritating to you when Sasuke snickered at that part. ‘It’s true, dammit!’ Naruto went on to describe the ‘dangerous’ weeding, trash collecting, and pet-walking missions you all had done, but Konohamaru pointed out that it seemed like it was all just him screwing up. Naruto then described how he had defeated the Hokage with his Sexy no Jutsu. You tuned everything out after that. It seemed you wouldn’t need to talk, so you didn’t bother to pay attention. Despite the somewhat cold temperature, it was a nice day, so you lay down on your back in the grass and watched a cloud float around. At one point, you heard Sasuke call Sakura annoying somewhere in the background. ‘I guess I’m just tuned in to that subject,’ you thought before returning to cloud-watching. At some point, you fell asleep while half-listening to Sasuke explain enemies and rivalries. His voice was kind of soothing in a way. A few minutes later, you were woken up by someone poking you in the cheek.  
“Stop trying to fly away with me, idiot stork! Do I look like a baby to you?” you yelled at a confused Sasuke. Realizing where you were, you shot him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I just finished dreaming.” He just shook his head and stood up from where he had been crouching next to you.  
“It’s about to start,” he told you, pointing to where the proctor was standing, about to address all the test takers. You sprang to your feet and got your mind into focus.  
“You will be able to experience why this place is called the Forest of Death,” she began. Naruto started to mock her and accuse her of trying to scare people. “Really? You sure are energetic.” She smiled, but it suddenly turned into a glare as she threw a kunai at him, leaving a scratch on his left cheek, then disappeared and reappeared behind him. “Boys like you die the fastest,” she crooned in his ear. Then, in a whisper, “After spilling out that red blood I love all over the place.” As she was running a finger along his cut, she sensed someone approaching from behind and turned, ready to defend or attack.  
“Here’s your knife,” the person said. You didn’t know how they said it, though, because they were holding the knife with their two foot long tongue. They were one of the more interesting, and most terrifying, people you’d seen so far.  
“Thank you,” the proctor replied. “But don’t stand behind me like that. Unless you want to be killed.” The person backed up slightly.  
”Sorry, I just get itchy when I see blood.” ‘Definitely a strange one,’ you thought as you made a mental note to avoid them.  
“It looks like there are a lot of hot-headed people here today,” the proctor commented. “This is going to be interesting. Naruto glared at her while holding his cheek. He probably thought she was the most hot-headed of them all. “Before we begin the second exam,” she informed the group as she walked back up to the front, “I’m going to pass these out to everyone.” She pulled a stack of papers out of her jacket. “These are consent forms. Those taking the exam must sign these.” She tapped them for emphasis.  
“Why?” Naruto questioned. Your guess was that it was because ‘Forest of Death’ wasn’t a joke.  
“From here on out, people will die,” the proctor explained, as calmly as if she were telling him what was for dinner. “So of course we need people to sign consent forms. Otherwise I’d be held responsible!” she laughed. “Now, I will begin the explanation of the second exam. To be concise, you will all go through an extreme survival match.” She handed the stack of consent forms to Naruto and they were slowly passed around. When you got yours, you scanned over it briefly. The main idea was that nobody could demand vengeance for your demise. “First, I’ll explain the training area’s geographical features.” She held up a map. “The 44th training area is a circular region surrounded by 44 locked gate entrances. There is a river, a forest, and a tower in the middle. The tower is approximately 10 km away from the gates. Inside this limited space, you will have to go through a certain survival program. The program will consist of a competition where anything goes over these scrolls.” She pulled two scrolls out of her coat and held them up. “The Scroll of Heaven and the Scroll of the Earth. You will fight over these scrolls. 26 teams in total passed the first exam. Half of those teams will get the Scroll of Heaven.” She held up the white scroll with the ‘heaven’ kanji on it. “The other half will get the Scroll of the Earth.” She held up the dark blue scroll with the kanji for ‘earth’ on it. “Each team will get one of these scrolls. Simply, you have to fight over these.”  
“And? What’s needed to pass?” Sasuke spoke up. ‘He has a nice voice...’ You shook your head. ‘Don’t be an idiot! I’m surprised my ears aren’t bleeding from how un-nice it is!’ You made sure to glare at your heart. ‘This is arrhythmia, not anything to do with him,’ you insisted.  
“Bring the Scrolls of Heaven and Earth to the tower with your teammates,” the proctor answered Sasuke.  
“In other words, the 13 teams, or half the people here that get their scroll stolen will fail,” Sakura summed it up. It looked like you had a fifty-fifty shot.  
“But it needs to be done within the time limit,” the proctor qualified. “This second exam has a limit of 120 hours. Or exactly five days.”  
“Five days?” Ino shouted.  
“What about food?” asked Choji.  
“Stir some up yourself,” the woman told him. “The forest is a treasure box of nature. There should be plenty to eat. However…” she trailed off.  
“There are a lot of man-eating beasts, poison bugs, and poisonous plants,” a silver-haired megane finished for her. ‘So watch your back and don’t make a salad,’ you summarized for yourself.  
“Also, it’s not possible for 13 teams, or 39 people, to pass.” You recognized the next speaker as the long-haired guy who was on a team with Round-Eyes, and who you had met at the First Exam.  
“As time passes, you will be required to move more,” said Round-Eyes. ‘Now that I think of it, I have no clue what his name is… oh well.’ “So, the time to rest your body will become shorter. That seems quite rough.” You agreed. If you put off most of the moving for the last couple of days it would be hard on your body during that time.  
“And we’re surrounded by enemies,” Sasuke added. “We won’t be able to sleep in peace.”  
“So, the longer you wait to get a scroll, the more likely you are to have to fight a difficult enemy to get one since the weaker people will be the ones who die first,” you concluded. A lot of people looked a little nervous. A few looked confident, however. You decided it would be best not to target those teams.  
“People will get hurt in the process of fighting over a scroll, and those who cannot bear this program’s strictness will emerge, as well,” said the Proctor.  
“Excuse me, can we quit in between?” asked Shikamaru, a guy from your class at the academy. He was someone you had been half hoping to end up on a team with. You liked his laid-back attitude, which was a lot better than Naruto or Sakura. He also didn’t attract crazy people like Sasuke did.  
“As a rule, you are not allowed to give up during the exam. You will spend the five days in the forest.” So any chance to avoid life-threatening situations was lost when you agreed to take the last question of the First Exam. ‘Well, being a ninja is all about life0theretenging situations anyway.’ “While we’re on this topic, here are the conditions that will fail you.” You turned your gaze from the grass at your feet to the proctor. “First, a team that cannot bring both scrolls to the tower with the three teammates, or four in one case, will fail. Second, the team that loses a teammate or produces an unrecoverable teammate will fail. Also, just as a note… you are not allowed to look inside the scrolls until you reach the tower.” You wondered if this was supposed to be a mission simulator. It made sense - if you opened an important document outside of a safe location on a real mission, you would run the risk of enemy ninja getting hold of top-secret information.  
“What happens if you look? Naruto asked.  
“That’s a surprise you’ll see when you look at it,” she replied. You guessed it would explode. “If you become a Chuunin, you will be handling top secret documents. It’s to determine your reliability.” It seemed you were right about the exam’s purpose. “Is that all for the questions? We will exchange all the consent forms of one team for one scroll at that hut… and after picking your gate entrance, everyone will begin at the same time.” The proctor paused for a moment and then heaved a sigh. “Where’s a last piece of advice. Don’t die!” ‘Straight forward and to the point,’ you thought. ‘I think I’ll do my best to follow that.’ After that, people sat around waiting to go into the hut to exchange their consent forms for scrolls. Curtains were drawn around the hut, so you couldn’t know who had the scroll or which it was. You perched atop a boulder to watch while you waited for it to be time to turn the forms in and Sasuke sat on the ground beneath you.  
“We might have to kill a few people,” you said, half to him and half to yourself.  
“Can you do it?” he asked you. You shrugged and stared into the trees. As far as physical ability, you were fairly confident. The examination grounds played on your strengths. On the other hand, you had never killed anyone.  
“If there is no other choice,” you told him. “However if it isn’t absolutely necessary I will try to avoid it.” Sasuke nodded. Then, one of the ninjas in the hut pulled the curtain aside and stuck his head out.  
“It’s time to trade your forms for a scroll,” he announced. He retreated back into the hut and pulled the curtain closed, and everyone stood up to exchange their forms. You hopped down from the boulder and turned to Sasuke.  
“Come on, Storm-Cloud-kun, let’s find the other two. Maybe if we get the Scroll of Heaven, the heavens will look after us.” Sasuke stood up and followed you, rolling his eyes as he realized that his nickname from you was permanent. Once all four of you were together, you all went into the hut to exchange your forms for a scroll. The ninja behind the table handed Naruto a Scroll of Heaven and you gave Sasuke a ‘thumbs up’. As the hand on the clock in the hut reached the next hour, the Proctor spoke up.  
“If you have received a scroll, follow the person in charge and move to your designated gates. We will begin in 30 minutes!”


	7. Danger in the Forest.

Your team ended up at gate 12. Naruto was as excitable as ever as he jumped and shouted about not losing. You hoped he could put aside his rivalry with Sasuke during this exam, though you doubted he would. Another futile hope you had was that Sakura would put aside her man-chasing. It was nearing the half-hour when the man in charge of you gate unlocked the chains keeping it closed. At exactly 2:30, you were released into the forest to begin the Second Exam. The gates burst open and your team walked through them. About five minutes after you had entered the forest, you heard screaming. “Is that someone’s scream?” Sakura asked, looking around warily.  
“Yup,” you confirmed. “Might as well get used to it. We’ll be hearing that kind of thing a lot from now on.”  
“I’m starting to get nervous…” she whispered.  
“It’s nothing, Sakura-chan!” Naruto tried to reassure her, but the voice crack detracted from the comforting factor. Suddenly, he ran over to a tree while saying he needed to pee. Sakura panicked and punched him in the back of the head.  
“What are you trying to do in front of two ladies?!” she yelled at him. “Go behind the grass!” You laughed and patted her on the shoulder.  
“You might want to get used to that, too,” you said. Then, in a more serious tone, you added, “With so many enemies around, it’s too dangerous for one person to leave the group, even for a short time, until we have a more secure position.” Sakura, however, insisted so you rolled your eyes and waved Naruto off, warning him not to go too far. A few minutes later, he returned, commenting on how nice his bathroom break had been. Sakura started to complain, but Sasuke and you simultaneously punched him in the face, sending him flying backwards into a tree.   
“Sasuke-kun, ______-chan! You didn’t need to go that far!” Sakura shouted. The two of you ignored her and continued the attack.  
“What are you doing all of a sudden?” Naruto asked.  
“What, you ask? That’s my line!” Sasuke countered. He grabbed a kunai while you pulled out your sai and Naruto pulled out his kunai as well and all three of you ran into another attack.  
“Sasuke-kun, ______-chan, please, stop!” Sakura pleaded with the two of you.  
“Sakura, look at him,” you told her. She looked confused.  
“Spill it! Where’s the real Naruto?” Sasuke demanded.  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” ‘Naruto’ insisted. You glared at him and tightened your grip on your sai.   
“Shove it!” you snapped. “Naruto has a scratch on his face from when the proctor threw a knife at him. Where’d it get off to, huh?” The Naruto imposter gasped. His skill must not have been good if he couldn’t remember such an obvious thing.  
“Also, your shuriken holster is on your left leg,” Sasuke added. “He’s right-handed. You’re even worse than Naruto at transforming. You fake loser.” Having been found out, ‘Naruto’ was consumed in a puff of smoke which cleared to reveal a creepy looking guy with some sort of metal contraption over his mouth and a band on his forehead that labeled him as one of the ninjas from the Village Hidden by Rain.  
“Unlucky,” he said. “Guess I have no choice. I’ll have to fight you. Which one of you has the scroll? If you give it up quietly, I’ll spare your lives.” When none of you responded, his eyes squinted up like he was smiling. “I see,” he said. “I have to use force now!” The three of you prepared ourselves to attack as he rushed you. Jumping high into the air, Sasuke performed a series of hand seals.   
“Katon Housenka no Jutsu!” He began to spit a series of fireballs at the attacker. In the meantime, you ascended into the branches of the trees. The rain ninja dodged all of the fire, and he and Sasuke met each other in the air with their blades. It was an excellent opportunity for you to try out a new move you had been working on. It was modeled after Gaara’s ability to dissolve into sand, though it wasn’t as sophisticated. Ou closed your eyes and let out a sharp wave of chakra that cut the leaves from the branches around you. Then, you created a series of currents that kept the leaves spinning around your body and launched yourself from your branch towards the enemy. He and Sasuke had leapt back from each other, so you didn’t have to worry about hitting your teammate. The man had started to retreat for a moment, so both of you began to pursue him. In the middle of the chase, Sasuke spotted Naruto tied up on the ground, so he paused to release him with a flung kunai while you put on an extra burst of speed and caught up to the enemy. Because of the leaves swirling around you, he couldn’t see how you would attack until there was already an x-shaped wound across his back from your sai. He faltered and fell towards the ground, but at the same time he threw several kunai at you. They missed, but one had an exploding tag attached to it. The force of the explosion behind you threw you forward and our leaves scattered as you lost control of your chakra for a moment. You landed hard on your knees, and before you could get to your feet the rain ninja was holding a kunai to your neck.  
“If you move, I’ll kill you,” he said. “Now hand over the scroll.” You froze, but there was a slight grin on your face. As you had expected, it wasn’t even a second before Sasuke showed up, distracting the man just long enough for you to roll to your feet and jump out of his reach. While you collected yourself, Sasuke attacked him with a kunai and Sakura finally arrived, but she just stood there and worried about Sasuke. Then, Naruto – the real one this time – arrived on the scene.  
“You won’t get away!” he shouted. The enemy jumped towards Naruto and Sasuke used his chakra to launch a kunai after him with his foot. You noticed that his normally black eyes had turned red. ‘He’s using Sharingan,’ you realized. The man managed to dodge the kunai, but when he turned to follow it with his eyes, Sasuke launched himself at him, hitting him in the stomach with a shoulder and stabbing him with another kunai.  
“Sasuke-kun!” Sakura was still standing in the same spot, still doing nothing but worrying and watching.  
“Don’t just stand there, Sakura!” Sasuke shouted. “He might not be alone! Listen, if you let your guard down, you’re going to really die.” He pushed the wounded man away from himself and jumped back.  
“This is unlucky,” the enemy groaned, clutching his stomach. “Coming alone turned out unfavorable for me.” He turned and fled. You stated to pursue him, but Sasuke called you back.  
“_____, don’t follow him. Otherwise he might manage to get help from his team.” You nodded and waked back to where our teammates stood.  
“Everybody get why we’ve got to stick together, now? You asked. Sakura nodded, looking slightly guilty. “From now on, everyone gets a bathroom buddy.” Everybody agreed and the four of you moved to a different location to discuss strategy.  
“If the four of us get separated, don’t trust anyone even if he looks like one of us,” Sasuke instructed everybody. “There’s a possibility that an enemy will transform into one of us and approach.” “So, what should we do?” Sakura asked.  
“We should set a password,” you announced. Naruto seemed a little confused.  
“Yes, a password is a good idea,” Sasuke agreed with you. “If a different password is given, assume that he’s an enemy no matter what he looks like, got it? I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully. First, you will ask, ‘The ninja song, ‘Ninki’?’ The answer is the following… It is a good chance when a large number of enemies are making a scene. There are no hideouts even in a quiet place. It is important for a ninja to know the right time. The time when the enemy is tired, and has his guard down. That’s it,” Sasuke finished. You were reasonably sure you could remember it, and Sakura looked confident, but Naruto had to ask to hear it again. “I said that I’m only going to say it once.” You shook your head. You had known Naruto wouldn’t be able to remember it. ‘Oh well, the password is a feint anyway. That person was listening through that bamboo straw from underground the whole time.’ You didn’t bother to say anything because you knew that Sasuke had already noticed. “I’ll keep the scroll,” he announced. Naruto was about to protest when something flew out from the trees and hit him in the cheek.  
“What was that?” he asked. You all peered into the forest. There was a strange whistling noise and then a huge blast of wind hit you head on. Everyone braced themselves against the gale and squinted in the direction of its origin.


	8. Battle With the Snake

Just as suddenly as it started, the wind was gone, and there was a trench in the ground three or four feet wide. You had all hidden yourselves before the person who had caused the wind could show up. You and Sasuke were hiding in the same place, but you didn’t know where the other two were. Footsteps behind you caused the two of you to spin around. The owner of the feet was Sakura.  
“Sasuke-kun!” she gasped happily and began to run closer. You both held up your weapons.   
“Stop!” Sasuke ordered. “First, the password. The ninja song, ‘Ninki’?” She paused for a moment, then nodded.  
“Okay… It is a good chance when a large amount of enemies are making a scene. There are no hideouts even in a quiet place. It is important for a ninja to know the right time. The time when the enemy is tired and has his guard down.” You lowered your weapons and allowed her to approach. Then, you heard more footsteps and a loud, complaining voice. Everyone turned toward the source as Naruto came running out of the trees.  
“Password first, Naruto,” you called out to him. He laughed.  
“I know, I know!” He then repeated the entire password perfectly. Sakura sighed in relief, but Sasuke threw a kunai as you pulled out your sai. “What are you doing?” ‘Naruto’ yelled after dodging the projectile.  
“This time, we have someone good enough to doge my attack?” Sasuke growled.  
“What are you talking about, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura stepped forward slightly. “Naruto said the password correctly.” You shot her an exasperated look.  
“Exactly! Don’t you remember him asking to hear it again? Obviously he didn’t remember,” you snapped, irritated at her slowness.  
“Do you think that he could remember such a long password?” Sasuke asked her. “If I asked, ‘What’s the password?’ what do you think the normal Naruto would say?”  
“He’d say, ‘Sorry, I forgot!’” you replied. “Also he moved differently from Naruto when he dodged Sasuke’s attack.” There was no way the real Naruto was that graceful.  
“That’s how it is. Show your real self, imposter. The fake Naruto grinned and licked his lips. You knew immediately who it was by the long, pointed tongue. ‘Looks like my decision to avoid this person failed,’ you sighed in your head.  
“I see,” they said. Their voice sounded the way you imagined a snake’s would if it was about to eat something. A puff of smoke concealed them as they transformed, and when it cleared you saw that it was exactly who you thought. The person in front of you was the one with the two-foot tongue who had returned the proctor’s kunai, and who got itchy at the sight of blood. “But if you knew that he was going to forget it… why didn’t you use a shorter password?” they asked.  
“I knew that you were eavesdropping on our conversation inside the ground. That’s why I made a long password,” Sasuke responded.  
“I see,” the person said, taking off their large straw hat. “So you don’t let your guard down. Looks like I can have more fun than I expected.” They licked their lips again with the creepily long tongue. ‘What’s with this person? They have such a long tongue… also I can’t tell at all whether they’re a man or a woman. It’s almost like a man inside a woman’s body…’ On top of everything, you had no idea where the real Naruto was. Your attention went back to the person in front of you when they pulled out a scroll. “You want our Scroll of Earth, right?” they asked. “Since you four have the Scroll of heaven.” The weird tongue slipped out of their mouth and wrapped around the scroll, pulling it into their mouth. It was like watching a snake eat. Eventually, the scroll disappeared. “Now, let’s begin… the fight over our scrolls.” You had to admit they had a very effective way of protecting their scroll. “By putting our lives on the line,” they finished while touching their strangely snakelike eye.  
‘Getting the Scroll of Heaven definitely doesn’t mean the heavens will watch over us…’ You were disappointed about that. When you looked into the person’s eye, you could sense their bloodlust so strongly that you could actually see all the ways they were imagining to kill you. All three of you fell to your knees, and you could hear Sasuke throw up. Your entire body was screaming at you to move, but the weird thing was that it wasn’t screaming ‘away’, but ‘get in front of’. ‘In front of who?!’ you scream back. You drag your eyes away from the enemy to try and find who you were supposed to ‘get in front of’. They came to rest on Sasuke. ‘Well, hell,’ you thought. You couldn’t lie to yourself anymore – you’d caught the love idiocy. Slowly, you crawled on your hands and knees until you were between Sasuke and the snake-person. Your eyes met with his and you saw your own fear reflected there. ‘Run!’ you silently willed him. He didn’t hear you, of course, because you couldn’t speak.  
“Two of you can’t move already?” the snake-person chuckled. “Then again, I’m surprised the other one of you could.” Unfortunately for you, after you had moved in front of Sasuke, that ability had left you. Our eyes were drawn to Sasuke’s hand, which was moving towards the kunai strapped to his thigh. ‘Is he going to attack?’ you wondered. At a snail’s pace, he drew it from the holster and got to his feet. “What are you going to do with that?” the enemy asked. With these words, it seemed Sasuke’s ability to move was gone. The snake-person started walking forwards, saying, “Relax, I will end it in a flash,” as they held three kunai in one hand. “You won’t have time to suffer.” They raised the three kunai above their head. “I wanted to have a little more fun, but… now I’m disappointed.” With a wrist flick, the kunai flew towards you. Suddenly, Sasuke turned his kunai on himself and buried it in his leg. This snapped the both of you into motion – him from the pain and you from the shock of seeing his blood while you were in a state of mind where his life was more important to you than your own. You both lunged for Sakura, who was still frozen, and disappeared with her into the forest.  
After you could no longer sense the snake’s presence, you stopped to rest. Sasuke leaned back against a tree and tried to remove the kunai from his leg. You lightly touched the back of his hand. “Let me,” you told him. He nodded and leaned his head back, looking up into the canopy of branches. You firmly grasped the handle of the kunai and pulled it out as quickly as you could. Sakura gasped at the arc of blood that followed it.  
“Sasuke-kun, are you alri-“ she was cut off when Sasuke clamped a hand over her mouth. He was still panicking. You were afraid, too. It was only a matter of time before you were found again. First things, first, though – Sasuke’s leg needed to at least be bandaged or running would be a lot harder. You ripped about three inches from the bottom of your shirt, enough that your bellybutton was showing, and wrapped the fabric around his leg, tying it off and whispering an apology when he gasped in pain. The cloth was already turning red, but it was better than nothing. Sakura started making noises underneath Sasuke’s hand, and finally she ripped it from her mouth. “A snake!” she shouted breathlessly. You turned to see a giant snake getting ready to snap you up. The three of you jumped away just before it struck, shattering the branch you had been standing on. The snake went after Sasuke, who screamed when he met its eyes.  
“Don’t get near me!” He threw several shuriken into its mouth and it fell into a large branch as blood dripped from its wounds. You watched in horror as the snake’s back split open to reveal the snake person.  
“You can’t let your guard down for even a second,” they said as they rose from the body of the deceased serpent. “Prey need to strain their minds all the time, and run around… in the presence of a predator.” The tongue fell out of their mouth and waved as if it were mocking you. Then, they burst forth and wound around branches with a snake-like body, speeding towards Sasuke. Before they could reach him, however, a kunai and three shuriken hit the branch in front of them and Snake-Person was forced to stop. When you looked to their origin, you saw a scratched-up and slime-covered Naruto standing on a branch.   
“Sorry, Sasuke,” he said. “I forgot the password.” Finally, the real Naruto. You were getting tired of fakes.


	9. Last Resolve

“I forgot the password,” Naruto announced, not apologetic in the least.  
“That’s all right, Naruto!” Sakura shouted. “Awesome!” Naruto looked very proud that Sakura was glad to see him. Unfortunately, his extravagant entrance also caught the attention of the snake person, whose eyes slid towards Naruto with a hint of irritation.  
“Naruto!” Sasuke yelled across the branches of the enormous trees. “I know you tried to be cool and intended to rescue us, but don’t put your nose in this! Escape! This thing… She’s on a different level!” On one hand, you agreed that it was a terrible idea to face this person head on, but at the same time it was also a bad idea to reject any form of help at a time like this.   
“Seems like you brought that giant snake down brilliantly, Naruto,” the snake person commented, almost lounging on the branch, their body still elongated in a completely inhuman way. Naruto’s eyes widened in realization. He seemed to finally notice the unnatural state of the enemy’s body, along with something else. It probably had to do with why he was covered in that weird slime. Everyone was silent for several moments, the tension of the situation steadily rising.  
“Hey hey hey!” Naruto shouted. “Evidently you’ve been bullying the weakling! Now that I, Naruto Uzumaki is here, I’m going to wipe the floor with you!” At least somebody was confident in this situation. Besides Lord of Snakes, of course. Sasuke looked more and more panicked with every word out of Naruto’s mouth. Sakura, as usual, sat there and stared at Sasuke. Naruto was oblivious to his teammate’s discomfort as he continued his staring contest with Snake-Person. You wondered how he could look into their eyes without freezing up like the rest of you. Maybe it was something along the same line as ‘idiots don’t catch colds’.   
Sasuke seemed to come to some sort of decision, as he stood up and let the Sharingan fade from his eyes. “Wait.” Everyone looked at him, slightly surprised. You already had a good idea of what he was thinking. Sasuke dug into the pouch at his hip and pulled out the Heaven Scroll. “If it’s the scroll you want, I’ll give it to you. I’m asking you. Just take this and go.” He held the scroll out to the enemy.  
“Huh?!” Naruto gasped.  
“What?” Sakura looked at her prince in surprise.  
“Sasuke…” you whispered.  
Snake Lord smiled, chuckling under their breath.  
“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto yelled. “What are you doing?” He pointed an accusing finger at Sasuke. “Why are you giving the scroll to the enemy?”  
“You shut up!” Sasuke gave Naruto a look that said the same.   
“I see…” the snake-person said. “You’re sensible. The only thing the ‘prey’ can hope for from the ‘predator’ is presenting other food and pray you would be spared, isn’t it?” It was a reasonable conclusion, but the person’s smug attitude really irritated you. Part of you wanted to tell them to shut up and get over themselves already. Along with love-idiots, smug people were one of your top five irritants.  
“Take it.” Sasuke tossed the scroll to them. Just as it was about to reach its destination, Naruto leapt to intercept it, bouncing off a tree to land directly in front of Sasuke. “You!” Sasuke shouted at the blonde. “Don’t interfere with this! Don’t you understand this situation?!” It was clear that his fear of the enemy had completely taken over his thought process. A shadow passed across Naruto’s face as he swung around to punch Sasuke with the full force of his entire body. Sasuke flew backwards, a bit of blood hanging in the air from the impact. He pushed off a branch with his hand and landed on the one next to it, crouching down in a defensive position. “What’re you doing all of a sudden?!” There was a long pause as Naruto looked at Sasuke in disgust, breathing heavily.  
“As for me, I don’t remember the password, so I got no way to make sure.” Naruto’s fists were clenched in anger. “But you, you’re an imposter Sasuke, aren’t you?” he accused.   
“Naruto!” Sakura gasped, outraged. “W-What are you trying to start?!”  
“You loser! I’m the real me!” Sasuke’s black eyes flashed with anger.  
“Liar,” Naruto growled. “This, this stupid coward is… absolutely… not the Sasuke I know!” Naruto grew angrier with every word. “I don’t know how strong she is but how can you be sure that she’ll let us go if we hand over the scroll, huh?!” He had a point, you thought. This person had the aura of someone who killed for fun, regardless of the usefulness of it. Even if they had what they wanted, they would most likely kill all of you anyway just for sport. “You’re the one who choked and doesn’t understand the situation!” Sasuke’s eyes widened as he understood his mistake. Snake-Person, who had been observing the exchange with amusement, chuckled.  
“Naruto.” They stood up. “That’s correct!” The tongue made a reappearance as a crazed expression crossed their face, their pupils somehow going in two different directions. Insanity must come with perks like more flexible eye muscles. “The scroll, I could just kill you and seize it.” As they spoke, they rolled back one of their sleeves to reveal a tattoo used for summoning familiars, biting a thumb and smearing the blood across the seal.  
“Don’t mess with me!” Naruto shouted, rushing towards the enemy.  
“Run, Naruto! Stop it!” Sasuke urged him, panic filling his face and voice. Your feet dug into the bark of the branch you were standing on. What were you doing? This whole time, you’ve just been sitting here like some sort of idiot, watching everything happen. You should be fighting, not waiting to die, and not watching someone else fight for you. Naruto was the only one who had any sense, and considering who you were talking about, that was saying something.  
“Sasuke…” he looked at you, confusion and fear swirling together in his eyes. “Naruto’s right. What the hell are we doing? If we do nothing, we’ll die for sure. If we run, that person will catch us easily. I don’t want to die like a coward, Sasuke.” You turned your gaze towards where Naruto was leaping towards Snake-Person. “If I have to die, I’m going to die protecting the person I care about.” You didn’t have time to register what you’d just admitted to, out loud, to the person it concerned, because Snake Lord made a move.  
“Summoning Jutsu.” There was a sudden rush of air surrounding them and Naruto, who was still in midair, was blown backwards as a giant snake exploded into existence beneath the enemy’s feet, shattering the branches in its path.  
“Naruto!” Sakura shouted in concern as the snake attempted to crush Naruto by slamming its body down on the area he’d been in. Naruto shielded his face from the splintering wood as he flew backwards. You felt your resolve falter a bit, but you shook your head to snap yourself out of it.  
“Damn…” you muttered, unable to fully vocalize your swear. Victory seemed even more unlikely now. Still, you were going to stick by your words. You would at least die with some sort of dignity. ‘Goodbye, sweet dream of hermithood,’ you thought to yourself. Then, out loud this time, “Goodbye, Sasuke.” You stood up and looked to where Naruto was crouched on a moss-covered branch, the snake-riding ninja hovering above him. Pulling out your sai and collecting what little courage you had, you launched yourself towards the enemy in hopes of landing a surprise attack. As you neared, they didn’t seem to register your approach, and you were filled with the hope that this would actually work. That hope died quickly. Just before you would have dug the blade of one of your sai into their spine, the snake-person snapped around so quickly it seemed as if they just appeared facing the other direction with no movement at all.  
“You’ll have to try harder than that,” they mocked you. You were knocked out of the air by a backhanded strike and slammed into the trunk of a tree. The air was driven out of you by the impact and you fell to the branch below where you gasped for air and struggled to maintain consciousness. Brushing off your failed attack as if it had never happened, Snake-Person turned back to Naruto.  
“Cute,” they said. “You’re such a cute prey.” You suddenly realized that the whole time you were being assailed by this person, their face had begun looking more and more like a corpse. The flesh was sagging, the cheeks were sunken. It was almost as if they were wearing a dead person’s face. ‘Great, because I needed this person to freak me out even more than they already did.’ Suddenly, the giant snake’s tail whipped around to crush the branch Naruto was resting on. He didn’t have time to move, and the force of the branch breaking sent him crashing through branch after branch above him until he hit a particularly thick one and began to fall. “We’ll polish him off,” snake person said as they watched him fall. You all watched in horror as the snake prepared to swallow your teammate. Just as he was about to be consumed, however, Naruto’s eyes snapped open. The irises were red, and his pupils had become slit-shaped.   
“Shove it!” he yelled, twisting in the air to slam his fist into the snake and propelling himself backwards. His eyes were wide with adrenaline, leaving their changed color easily visible.  
“This brat!” Snake Lord said in disbelief. “It can’t be…” Naruto leapt from tree to tree, making his way back around to launch another attack on the enemy. He screamed, unleashing a torrent of punches on the snake. It crashed through branch after branch as he drove it downwards with his rapid strikes.  
“Naruto…” Sakura whispered. “He’s lost control.” You agreed. The boy had snapped. Right now, though, you couldn’t say it was a bad thing. “But… that Naruto, why is he so strong?!” Naruto launched himself off the forked tongue of the snake only to return with renewed efforts. The snake person just smiled and, lifting their hand to their lips, blew a ball of fire at Naruto in the same way one would blow a kiss.  
“Those eyes,” they said as they watched Naruto fall through three branches and land on the fourth with a gasp. “There’s no mistake. This just got interesting, Naruto.” Snake Lord turned to Sasuke. “Sasuke-kun, now what’s your move?!” The giant snake they were standing on dove towards Sasuke and Snake-Person rode it like a surfboard.   
“Sasuke-kun!” Sakura screamed. You struggled to stand, but by the time you were able to get to your feet, it was too late. The sound of splintering wood filled the forest. Preparing yourself for the worst, you forced your eyes open. What you saw caught you by surprise. Instead of a crushed Sasuke, you saw Naruto holding off the snake with nothing but two kunai, his back braced against the nose of the snake.  
“Hey. Are you hurt?” Naruto asked Sasuke, breathing heavily. “Scaredy cat?!” Sasuke froze. It was the same words he had said to Naruto during that mission, when Naruto froze up during an attack. “This stupid coward is absolutely not the Sasuke I know!” Naruto growled, staring straight into Sasuke’s eyes. While he was distracted by the stare-down, Snake-Person took the opportunity to take Naruto by surprise. His creepy tongue wrapped around the boy’s body and pulled him up into the air. “Darn it! Let me go!” Naruto shouted as he struggled to escape. “You stupid snake!” He was pulled in by the tongue so that he hung directly before its owner. Snake-Person grabbed their right wrist in their left hand, purple flames appearing on the tips of each of their five fingers. The tip of their tongue pulled up the edge of Naruto’s shirt to reveal a spiral seal on his stomach.   
“Five Pronged… Sealing!” They drove their fingers into Naruto’s stomach causing him to scream in pain. The purple flames disappeared and steam rose from the area of contact as five spiral shaped markings appeared around the seal on Naruto’s abdomen.  
“Sasuke-kun, help Naruto” Sakura screamed. Sasuke was locked in a state of shock, unable to move. All of you watched as Naruto’s eyes returned to their usual blue color before he went limp in the enemy’s grasp. Snake-Person reached into Naruto’s satchel and pulled out the Heaven Scroll before flinging him away. “Naruto!” Sakura quickly pulled out a kunai and threw it, pinning Naruto to a tree by his jacket and stopping his fall. Turning to Sasuke, she yelled, “What happened Sasuke-kun?” Sasuke didn’t answer. “Naruto’s certainly different from you, Sasuke-kun. He’s a klutz and kind of gets in the way, but he’s not in the least a coward!”   
“Shut up, Sakura.” You straightened your back and gave her a cold look. “Yes, Sasuke choked and Naruto isn’t a coward, but you have no place berating anybody for lack of action. What have you been doing this whole time besides standing there and fretting over things? What do you ever do, Sakura?” You had officially run out of patience for Sakura. She was always getting on to other people and acting all self-important, but from what you’d seen there was no basis for any of it. If she was going to act all high and mighty, she’d better at least have some sort of skill or basic usefulness to back it up. “I agree, Sasuke could have done better this time, but before you go chastising people, make sure you’re not acting like a damn hypocrite.” Tightening your grip on your sai, you shot her one last glare and launched yourself towards the enemy a second time. “Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you have the right to stand at the sidelines and wait for a man to come save you!” By no means did you expect this attack to be successful. The enemy was stronger and faster than you, they’d beaten Naruto even when his power had somehow tripled. If you did this, you would probably die. But even if you did die, at least you would die as someone who actually followed what they claimed to believe.  
“What a stupid prey,” was the last thing you heard before the tail of the giant snake slammed into your chest. You could feel one of your ribs crack, you couldn’t breathe, all you saw was leaves and branches flying past you until you crashed into a tree and everything went black.


	10. Waking Up to Chaos

‘I feel like I’m being pressed into the ground by a blanket of darkness…’ You woke up to a feeling of dark pressure, a large amount of chakra filled with killing intent. With a jolt, you sat up and opened your eyes, looking around for the source of the energy you were feeling. What you saw was Sasuke, who had a dark purple aura rolling off of him like smoke.  
“Sakura, who did this to you?” he asked, his voice low and threatening. For a moment, you were confused. Then, your eyes found Sakura who was on the ground covered in bruises. Around the clearing were several people, some you recognized that seemed to be on Sakura’s side, and three you didn’t who were from the Sound judging by their forehead protectors. After taking in the scene, you pieced together that while you were unconscious another team had attacked Sakura. It seemed that two other teams from the leaf had come to her aid. You turned back to Sasuke and were shocked at what you saw. He was covered in black markings in addition to the visible purple chakra. “Who is it?” he asked again.  
“Sasuke-kun, that body…” Sakura trailed off. Sasuke looked down at his hands with angry red eyes.  
“Don’t worry,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides. “On the contrary, strength is rapidly flowing in.” His hands tightened into fists. “Right now I feel good. That guy gave this to me.” You could feel the truth of his words in the power you felt radiating from his body. The proximity to that overwhelming amount of chakra was slightly straining in your weakened state. One thing you had to wonder, however, was what he meant when he said ‘that guy gave this to me’. ‘Was it Snake Lord? Did he put some kind of mark on Sasuke the way he put that seal on Naruto?’ “At last I understood. I’m an Avenger. On my road, I must put power into my hands, even if it means abandoning myself to the devil.” Now he was starting to sound crazy. You didn’t like where this was going. ‘He couldn’t be thinking of joining that guy, right? Even if he did give him power, how does he expect going with someone like that to turn out well?’ While he did have power, the feeling of the power that was radiating off of him wasn’t good. It looked like you were right that day when everyone was doing introductions. Sasuke’s life seemed to be heading down a dark path. “Sakura, tell me,” Sasuke repeated. “Who harmed you?”  
“It was me,” one of the enemies spoke up. His hair reminded you of Kakashi-sensei’s except black instead of silver. Sasuke’s eyes snapped onto him and he turned to face the sound ninja.   
“Ino!” Shikamaru yelled from the bushes on the other side of the clearing. “If you stay like that you’re gonna get involved!” The girl he was shouting to was one of the enemy ninja, so you guessed that Ino had used her mind transfer on her. “Come back to this body! Choji, you too, come over here and hide.” Choji nodded and ran over to his teammates while Ino released her jutsu and returned to her body.  
Looking over to Sasuke again, you saw that the black marks had begun to glow like fire, spreading even further across his face. The dark purple smoke began to whip around him even faster than before.  
“Dosu, this half dead bastard is nothing to be scared of!” the Kakashi lookalike called out to his teammate, a guy who looked like he was carrying a haystack around on his back, as he formed a seal with his hands.  
“Stop, Zaku! Don’t you understand?!” Haystack warned the other.   
“I’ll take care of all of them in one fell swoop!” Zaku boasted, clearly not understanding. “Super Sonic Slicing Wave!” A huge wave of sound came blasting towards you, and you put your hands up in a futile attempt to block it. The aftermath of the attack left an enormous trench in the ground. “Heh! He must have been blown to pieces!”   
“Who did?” Sasuke asked. He had moved all three of you out of the way of the attack. The spiky haired ninja barely had time to be surprised before Sasuke backhanded him across the clearing. He bounced a few times before coming to a stop, then pushed himself to his hands and knees, coughing. While the enemy was recovering, Sasuke began a rapid series of hand seals.  
“Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!” Jets of fire shot towards the two sound nin.  
“Don’t push your luck!” shouted Zaku. “I’ll blow them off!” He released a sound wave to block the fireballs, but when the fire went out it revealed four shuriken that had been hidden by the flames. They all struck their target, distracting him from Sasuke’s next move.  
“Zaku, below you!” his teammate shouted to warn him. He looked down just in time to see Sasuke dart past him, before his arms were forced behind him and a foot was planted in the middle of his back. Sasuke smiled sadistically, applying pressure with his foot and pulling the enemy’s arms backwards.   
“It seems like you’re proud of these arms,” Sasuke said with a crazed look in his eyes, still smiling. He continued increasing the pressure and you could hear the guy’s joints cracking.  
“S-Stop it!” he said in a strained voice. You were definitely getting worried. Sure, he had tried to kill you, so breaking his arms wasn’t really even that big of a stretch as far as fair went, but you’d never really thought Sasuke would take that kind of sadistic joy in hurting someone. Finally, the sound ninja’s arms gave in to the force Sasuke was putting on them and broke, their owner screaming in pain as he fell to the ground. Done with his victim, Sasuke turned to the haystack ninja.  
“You’re the only one left.” Dosu shook in fear as Sasuke turned the rest of the way around. “You… make it a little more fun for me.” He slowly walked across the clearing toward the last standing Sound ninja who was frozen in fear. The rest of you watched, wondering where the Sasuke you’d known before had gone.   
“Stop!” Sakura screamed, dashing forward and throwing her arms around Sasuke’s waist. “Stop it.” Tears streamed down her face as she pressed it into Sasuke’s back. An angry red eye turned towards her, and for a moment you thought that he would turn on her. “Please,” Sakura whispered. “Stop.” Finally, the markings on his body turned that fiery color and began to slowly recede, pulling into their origin on his neck. Once his skin was clear, Sasuke collapsed to the ground. Shaking yourself out of your dazed state, you stood up and rushed over to where Sakura knelt next to your raven haired teammate.   
“Sasuke, are you alright?” you asked, brushing a strand of hair away from his forehead, eyes filled with concern. He didn’t answer, and sat in silence taking rapid, shaky breaths.  
“You’re strong,” the haystack spoke up, holding out a dark blue Earth Scroll. “Sasuke… We can’t defeat you the way you are now.” He knelt down and placed the scroll on the ground. “This is our fee for settling this. Please let us withdraw from here.” The two by your side gasped in surprise, but you’d figured they would give up after seeing that monstrous display of strength. Dosu was the one who had warned his teammate against fighting Sasuke, after all. He stood up, leaving the scroll in the dirt as he collected his fallen teammates. “It seems selfish, but we now have something we need to confirm too. That being said, let’s make a promise. If there’s another opportunity to battle with you in this test, we won’t run or hide.” Sakura turned back to Sasuke while you watched Dosu carry his teammates into the trees.  
“Wait!” Sakura called out to them. “Who in the world is Orochimaru? What did he do to Sasuke?! Why Sasuke?!” You weren’t sure how much time Sakura spent in the library – probably none – but any history book would tell you that Orochimaru was one of the legendary Sanin. If that’s who you were fighting earlier, it was a wonder you’d made it out with nothing but some cuts and bruises.  
“I don’t know,” Dosu replied, looking over his shoulder at her. “We were just given orders to make the hit on Sasuke.” That meant that these people must have been sent to be some sort of test for the curse mark Orochimaru put on Sasuke. They were probably expected to die. ‘I’m glad I don’t work for that guy, considering he uses his own people as pawns to sacrifice as a test for other pieces.’   
“Hey! Are you okay?” Choji shouted to the three of you.  
“It’s a pain, but Ino, I’ll leave Lee to you,” Shikamaru instructed Ino.  
Naruto, who had been unconscious for the whole ordeal, began to stir. “Sakura-chan is in danger…” he muttered, still not fully awake. “It’s okay… I’ll protect her…” You rolled your eyes. Shikamaru and Choji stood over him, discussing what to do about him.  
“Should we kick him awake?” Shikamaru suggested.   
“Can I do it?” Choji asked, raising a foot.  
“What am I?” Sasuke’s quiet question brought your attention away from those three and back to him. His eyes were wide, staring at the hand that had been covered in black marks a few minutes before. You gently, but firmly, placed your hands over his.  
“Sasuke.” His eyes, still filled with horror, darted up to meet your own. “Right now, what we need to do is get to the end of this test. When we get to the tower, we can get out of this forest and then we’ll be able to figure out what this is.” He still seemed unconvinced, but he reluctantly nodded. You gave his hands a light squeeze before letting them go. “We may have lost to that guy, but that’s only natural. If it’s anybody else, I can promise without a doubt that we’ll be okay!” Flashing him a huge grin, you gave a thumbs up. “If you start feeling that thing come back, you can take a break and I’ll cover you.” Naruto’s scream caught your attention, but you kept your gaze locked on Sasuke. You knew that he’d just been woken up in some weird way by those two, and wasn’t in any actual danger.  
“Everyone hide!” Naruto shouted. “No, lie low quick!” He began crawling across the ground towards the three of you, looking around for enemies. “W-Where is that guy?” Naruto being an idiot seemed to pull Sasuke mostly out of his haze as you all turned to look at the orange clad ninja. Choji came up behind him and started poking him in the back of the head with a stick.  
“You are quite one of a kind,” Shikamaru told him. “Actually, you are getting on my nerves.” Naruto looked around, confused, until his eyes landed on where you, Sasuke, and Sakura sat together on the other side of the clearing. His gaze locked on Sakura.  
“Sakura-chan!” he yelled, running towards her before skidding to a stop. “Sakura-chan… your hair!” You followed his eyes to Sakura. ‘Oh, I didn’t notice that… how clumsy of me.’ Sakura’s hair had been chopped short, rather messily.  
“Oh! This?” she asked, running her fingers through the ragged pink locks. “I’m changing my image. I like it better long but when I move around in a forest like this, it gets in the way if it’s long.” That was very true, which was why you’d always kept your hair pretty short. If it got past your shoulders it started collecting twigs and getting caught in things. While Sakura was talking, Shikamaru and Choji approached the four of you, glaring down at Naruto.  
“By the way,” Naruto asked with a confused look on his face, “why are you guys here?!” Shikamaru sighed.  
“Hah… It’s such a pain to explain it to you.” You couldn’t help but agree. Somehow, after all that had happened, the last thing you felt like doing was recapping it for the guy who managed to sleep through the whole thing.  
“Everybody helped out,” Sakura said, still running her fingers regretfully through her hair. The only thing to alert you to someone else’s appearance was a rustling noise before Tenten dropped from above into the middle of the clearing.  
“I’ll take care of him from here,” she said to Ino, who was carrying Lee on her shoulder.   
“Ah… Okay,’ Ino replied. She handed the bowl-cut over to his friend, who began to shake him vigorously.  
“Keep it together!” Tenten shouted. “Lee!” He came to, and she dropped him to the ground. You were getting tired of sitting around and observing people, so you stood up and walked over to a tree, leaning your back against it and closing your eyes. ‘I just woke up and it’s already been such a long day…’ Everyone’s antics weren’t helping with your fatigue, either. After a couple moments, you felt someone sit down next to you. Cracking one eye open, you looked over to see Sasuke leaning against the tree and staring up at the branches above you.  
“Storm-Cloud-kun, I sincerely look forward to the day I become a hermit,” you told him. It made your idiot heart flutter when he cracked a small smile. ‘I’m starting to get used to this feeling…’ you thought. ‘Although, I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.’ It was probably a bad thing.


	11. Clumsy Denials and a Suspicious Man

For the past couple days, your team had been having a pretty peaceful time. You’d decided it would be a good idea to take some time to rest after that attack since everyone had been injured. Sasuke and Naruto were fishing, Naruto in the water with about six other Narutos slapping the fish out of the water and Sasuke standing on a rock pinning the thrown fish to a tree on the other bank with kunai. You were lounging on the branch of a tree, watching the two of them catch your dinner and enjoying your chance to relax. All the excitement that came with the Chuunin Exam was starting to wear you out. Turning your gaze to the clear, blue sky, you wondered how Gaara was faring so far. He’d seemed like the type of guy to have a pretty easy time with something like this.   
“Sasuke-kun!” Sakura called out from where she was setting up camp. “The fire’s ready to light! Fireballs, please.” Sasuke sighed and turned away from Naruto, who he’d been arguing with about how many fish they should catch.  
“______, could you take over for me?” he asked. With a sigh of your own, you rolled out of the tree and landed on the ground with your hands in your pockets.  
“Fine, but only because you asked so nicely.” You pulled out three kunai and motioned for Naruto to continue hitting fish out of the water.  
“Come on, isn’t four enough?” Naruto complained. “I’m tired!” You waved off his protests.  
“You heard Storm-Cloud-kun. Four more so we’ll have something to eat later. It’s better to get them now while everything is peaceful than to go hungry later because we’re fighting for our lives.” Naruto continued to grumble, but he went back to slapping fish into the air for you to skewer. Once four more fish were pinned to the tree, you shoved your hands back in your pockets and headed towards the campfire that Sasuke had started. “Get those and bring them to camp so I can clean them, okay?” you instructed him. A new round of complaints went off about how Naruto was doing everything, but you ignored him and sat down next to Sasuke.  
“Did you get enough fish,” he asked you.   
“Obviously,” you replied, poking him in the ribs. “Have more faith in me, Storm-Cloud. I may be lazy but I know a thing or two about surviving in the forest.” Sasuke ‘hn’-ed and pulled out a kunai to start scaling the fish that Naruto dropped in front of the two of you. ‘Good to see he’s back to normal,’ you thought as you pulled out your own kunai and joined him in cleaning the fish.

Twenty minutes later, the fish were all on sticks stuck in the sand, cooking over the open flames. “It’s already been four days since the second exam started,” Sasuke said. Sakura, who was poking the coals with a stick to keep the flames hot made a noise of agreement. “The start of the second exam was around three in the afternoon. We only have twenty five or twenty six hours left.” You nodded. Once you finished eating, you’d need to get a move on. Relaxing was nice, but if you got disqualified from the exam for running out of time it would be putting your retirement further out of reach. Besides, the next Chuunin exam wouldn’t be in the Leaf, so if you failed this one you’d have to go to some distant foreign land for the next opportunity.  
“There may already be some teams that have passed,” Sakura added.   
“Definitely,” you agreed. “There have been people who’ve finished in less than a day before, so this far into the exam many people are probably already through.” Sasuke gripped the Earth Scroll you’d gotten from that haystack and looked in the direction of the tower. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Naruto plotting to grab the biggest fish. You’d been feeling somewhat mischievous for a while, so you plucked it from the fire just before he could grab it.   
“Aww, man, I was gonna get that one!” Naruto whined.  
“Maybe next time you’ll be faster,” you replied, taking a bite out of the fish. Naruto continued to mutter under his breath while everyone ate.  
“For all we know,” Sakura spoke up after a while, “there may not be any Heaven Scrolls.”  
“What do you mean, Sakura?” Sasuke asked with his deep, attractive voice. ‘Shut up, _____.’ It was getting far too normal for you to have these thoughts. You may have admitted to your feelings, but it didn’t mean you had to be all lovesick about it.  
“Well, in this second exam, four of the five day time limit have passed already.” Now that you thought about it, it was entirely possible that all of the Heaven Scrolls had been either destroyed or removed from the forest.  
“Basically, we waited too long and now there’s a good chance that we won’t be able to find the scroll we need,” you said, tossing your now clean stick into the fire.   
“That Orochimaru guy burned the Heaven Scroll that we had,” Sakura continued. “That means that the teams that will pass had already, at that point, decreased by one. Also, all of the other scrolls are not necessarily safe either.”   
“Add to that the scrolls that people who have already passed took with them to the tower, and it’s actually more likely that there aren’t any Heaven Scrolls than it is that there are,” you added.   
“After parting ways with the Leaf Village bunch, we allotted time for healing,” Sasuke said. “So from here on, we have to increase the distance of our actions. At any rate, the next enemy is our last chance.” Sasuke stood and held up his water container. “I’m going to get some drinking water.” As he walked off, you jumped up to follow him.  
“I’ll be doing that, too. My canteen’s almost empty now.” Jogging to catch up with him, you left the other two behind next to the dying fire. “Hope you don’t mind me tagging along,” you said to Sasuke. “Normally I’d stay behind to make sure those two don’t get into any trouble but I think I’d like to take a break from that.” Sasuke shrugged.  
“Do whatever you want,” he told you. The two of you walked in silence for a while until you reached the river where you unscrewed the lids from your canteens and dipped them into the water. It took you a couple moments to realize that Sasuke had been staring at you.  
“What is it, Storm-Cloud?” you asked him. For a few seconds he said nothing. Then, he seemed to find his words.  
“When we were fighting Orochimaru…” he began, before trailing off again.  
“What about it?”  
“You said you wanted to die protecting the person you cared about?” His words made you freeze in the middle of putting the cap back on your full jug of water. “Who were you talking about?” While you remained calm on the outside, inside you were scrambling to pull a response together. You honestly didn’t remember saying that, so you wracked your brain for answers. Suddenly, you remembered exactly what he was talking about. ‘Damn, I did say that out loud…’   
“Don’t be silly,” you said, trying to brush him off with a grin. “When did I ever say that? You must have been hearing things! You know me, I’m not the type to have a most important person. I’m a future hermit, what would I need with an emotion like that? You must have imagined it, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m certain you’re mistaken” – you cut yourself off when you realized that your rambling was more of a giveaway than simply denying it would have been. Sasuke looked at you with a raised eyebrow that told you he believed you even less than you believed yourself.  
“It’s me, isn’t it?” You averted your gaze from him, instead focusing on a frog that was swimming across the river.   
“Don’t worry about it, Sasuke. Even if I accidentally started liking you – the tiniest little amount of miniscule appreciation of your existence – I won’t get all weird like Sakura and Ino. I know how to control myself. So, if you would be so kind as to pretend this never happened, I’m sure these ridiculous feelings will be on their merry way if I focus hard enough.” The instant the words were out of your mouth you wanted to slap yourself. Why didn’t you just deny it? Right. You were really bad at convincingly denying things.  
“Accidentally, huh?” Sasuke asked, sounding slightly amused. You nodded but still refused to look at him. “Well, I guess if someone had to like me, I’d rather it be you than those other two.” Without another word, Sasuke stood up and walked back towards the rest of the team. You had to take about five minutes to calm your jerk of a heart down before you could follow him. ‘That bastard… why did he have to go and say something like that?’

Once you’d gotten yourself back to normal, you returned to camp only to find that someone else had shown up. ‘Isn’t that the megane guy from before the exam started?’ The other three of your team were discussing something with the silver haired man.   
“What’s up guys?” you called out to them. “Who’s this ponytail?” Everyone turned to look at you as you approached.  
“This guy’s Kabuto,” Sasuke answered. “You were asleep the first time we met him.” You shrugged. That was a normal thing for you.   
“Well, I’ve already got both scrolls, so I’ll be going now,” Kabuto announced, walking away. ‘Both of them? Well, in that case…’  
“Wait!” Sasuke shouted. Kabuto stopped and turned towards him. “Fight me.” If you could get his Heaven Scroll, you’d be set.  
“Fight you, you say?” the megane repeated Sasuke’s words.  
“Sasuke…” Sakura looked like she wanted to protest.  
“Idiot Sasuke!” Naruto yelled at him. “What are you saying suddenly?” It seemed that those two thought of that guy as a friend. Well, you didn’t know him, so…  
“It’s all fine if you two like this guy, but I have no clue who he is, and he’s got the scroll we need. It seems to me like the best thing right now would be to take him out and take his scroll. He’s alone, right? It’d be a lot easier to get his than it would be to wander around the forest searching for someone else to take it from. For all we know, that’s the last Heaven Scroll left in the exam.” Your argument was logical, but then again Naruto and Sakura weren’t the types for logic anyway.  
“He helped us earlier, though!” Naruto protested.  
“Then don’t help me,” you replied. “I’ve not received anything from this person, so it should be fine if I attack him myself.” Naruto was about to come up with another protest, but Sasuke cut in.  
“Sorry, but we don’t have any more time,” he said.   
“Hey, Sasuke! Kabuto saved us!” Naruto continued to protest, pointing a finger at Sasuke.  
“From what?” you asked.  
“I was about to open the scroll and Kabuto stopped me!” You put a hand over your eyes in exasperation.   
“Are you an idiot?” You seriously shouldn’t have left those two on their own. First you accidentally told Sasuke you liked him, and now this. You turned to Kabuto. “Thank you for stopping our idiots, but I’m afraid that I don’t have time for courtesy.”  
“But _____-chan, Sasuke-kun, we do owe him…” Sakura said, trying to reason with the two of you.  
“Shut up,” Sasuke snapped. “It can’t be helped. I said it before, too. This is all that can be done to survive through this forest now.” He stepped into an attacking stance.  
“Hmm… That’s a lie,” Kabuto said.  
“A lie?” Naruto asked.  
“Your heart isn’t totally in this as much as you’re saying,” the ponytail replied.   
“Mine is,” you shot back, raising your hand like you were waiting to be called on by the teacher.  
“If you could really become serious about this exam,” Kabuto continued, ignoring you, “why is it necessary to fight me? You should jump on me at my unguarded moment without going to the trouble of announcing it.” He pushed up his glasses with two fingers. “That’s… a ninja.” Well, he had you there. On the other hand, he did seem to be ignoring you. Maybe you could… “I’ll tell you the way you should go. However… let’s talk as we move. The smell of broiled fish in the fire smoke has reached a great distance. At this rate, we’ll be marked by fierce animals… and enemies.” You heard someone gasp from the bushes. ‘Damn, it looks like I should let this guy go. There’s a whole team of enemies out there now, no use making another one.’   
“Fine, but if we start running out of time and still don’t have a scroll, don’t think I’ll hesitate to take yours.” You’ll work with this guy if you have to, but you’re not closing any doors.  
“That’s all I can ask,” he replies. With that, the five of you take off into the forest. The feeling of flying through branches is exhilarating as you jump from tree to tree.  
“Are there really still enemies around?” Sasuke asks.  
“Definitely,” you tell him. “There was one watching us earlier, which is why I agreed to be friends for now.” Your teammates looked surprised.  
“There was an enemy back there?” Naruto shrieks. “How come you sensed him and we didn’t?”  
“Because I’m a future hermit.” Nobody can really reply to that.  
“Do you know the cleverest way of fighting in battles in jungles and expansive forests such as this?” Kabuto asks all of you.   
“Of course,” you answer. “You wait for people to tire themselves out and hide near the end of their journey, where you set up traps for them to stumble into while they’re tired. That had been my plan, but we were attacked very quickly after arriving and ended up running out of time to use that tactic.” If you hadn’t been unconscious for so long, you’d have had time to get ahead of the others and set something up, but since you were ambushed by Orochimaru so early on, the time you had to do that was all but gone.  
“That’s correct,” said Kabuto. “The tower in the middle of the forest is the common goal for us test takers. That means that when the last day of the test is here, the area near that tower is the easiest place to gather scrolls.” That was true. Right now, the only place you’d be likely to find any scrolls would be close to the tower.  
“Oh, I see. Ambush right?” Sakura said. “In other words, we go after the scrolls of the teams that have both the Heaven and Earth scrolls and are setting out for the tower.”  
“That’s only one third of the answer,” your ‘guide’ corrected her. “You guys are not the only ones thinking that! Near the tower, the same badgers have probably already set traps, so…” That would be where your skills would come in handy. You’d been in this forest for four days now. That was long enough for you to familiarize yourself with what is normal and what is not. If there were any traps set up, or anything out of the ordinary, it would be pretty easy for you to detect them.  
“That means there are lots of enemies lying in wait to engage us,” Naruto announced. “Heh, having a handicap gets me pumped, I say!” He was certainly an energetic person. Personally, you preferred to have the upper hand. “If we just beat them all and get the Heaven Scroll, we’ll all survive the second exam!” If that plan worked out, yes. If not, you planned for your team to be the one to survive, regardless of the others’ feelings towards Kabuto. Besides, you couldn’t bring yourself to fully trust that guy. He was definitely a suspicious person. For one, where were his teammates? Shouldn’t he be with his team instead of running around with someone else’s? He had to have some sort of end game in mind.  
“That’s still only two thirds of the answer!” Kabuto explained the rest of it as you all made your way towards the tower. “The last part is the collectors who are certain to appear during an exam of this nature. In this exam, with the tower just a stone’s throw away, you definitely can’t rest easy. Those particular conditions are what create them. In other words, those who gather extra scrolls as compensation for sparing them when coming across an unexpected enemy. Also, those who get information to proceed favorably through later exams by providing lacking scrolls to comrades sharing the same village. And those who are thinking of, under conditions favorable to them, annihilating the powerful ones who will probably get through to the third exam. It goes without saying, but these guys are quite the big guns and the worst enemies who are definitely not conceited.”  
“I see,” Sasuke said. “I understand the reason why you appeared before us.” Kabuto looked at Sasuke, confused. “You’re scared, too, right?”  
“That’s right,” Kabuto confirmed. Everyone else seemed to take it as his reason, but you had a hard time accepting it. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but there was something off about this guy. The air around him somehow felt colder, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a dangerous person.


	12. A Million of the Same Guy

“Now then, the tower has finally come into view,” Kabuto said. It was nighttime now, and you had finally stopped to take a break once you could see the tower. “From here on is the hard part…”  
“All right!” Naruto shouted, excited to face some enemies. “Let’s go!” You’d definitely by facing them now that he’d let everyone know exactly where you were.  
“Naruto you dumbass,” you whispered. “We’re trying not to be noticed! What is wrong with you?” Everyone glared at the tactless blonde. A rustling sound alerted you to the existence of something besides yourselves nearby.  
“An enemy?!” Sakura gasped.  
“Over there!” Naruto shouted – again – and threw a kunai into the bushes. Instead of an enemy ninja, the projectile pinned a giant centipede to the side of a tree. The enormous insect squirmed in an attempt to free itself before going still. “Oh, it’s just a centipede,” Naruto sighed.   
“Yikes! It’s huge…” Sakura looked at the centipede in horrified disgust. Sasuke had a look on his face that said ‘are you kidding me?’ “All those legs are gross.”   
“Naruto-kun…” Kabuto addressed the loudmouth blonde. “I’d like to avoid inadvertent sounds and careless actions from here on. Rushing ahead through a dense forest making noise like an elephant is the same as serving notice in a loud voice that we’re coming.” Naruto was starting to realize his mistake. “We’d definitely receive an enthusiastic welcome.”  
“O-Oh, I see…” he said.  
“As long as time allows, we should go slowly while remaining hidden,” Kabuto continued. Everyone agreed, including you. Even if he was a shady and suspicious guy, he was right in that regard.   
Everyone split up so as to bring less attention to the group. Sasuke went underwater using a bamboo chute to breathe, Sakura waded through the swampy area, Kabuto used some sort of invisibility jutsu, and Naruto, being Naruto, got caught in many vines as he tried to make his way through the treetops. Like Naruto, you took to the treetops, but in a far more stealthy and graceful manner. You knew exactly how to move through the trees to eliminate any sound, allowing your presence to blend in with the rest of the life in the forest. As far as anyone else was concerned, you didn’t exist.  
Once enough time had passed that anyone who was alerted to your presence in the forest by Naruto’s yelling would have lost track of you, you all gathered together again. The other four proceeded towards the tower on the ground while you remained in the branches above them as a lookout. After a couple minutes, you came across a place where one of the other teams had fallen into a trap. Their bodies were suspended from the branches by ropes, all of them dead. You dropped down to warn the others, but Kabuto had already noticed and pointed it out.  
“Is it a trap?” asked Sasuke.  
“Yeah,” Kabuto confirmed. “It’ll get intense from here on out.” The group began to move on, but as Naruto was walking away, his foot caught on a wire hidden under some leaves. Pulling the wire released a storm of kunai that all flew toward Naruto. Before they could hit him, he was knocked out of the way by Kabuto. Naruto called out to Kabuto as he saw the projectiles embed themselves in his back, but you weren’t worried. He’d already used a substitution jutsu. The only thing that got hit was some old log. “That was close, Naruto-kun,” Kabuto called out from high up in the branches of a tree.  
“Substitution jutsu!” Naruto realized the megane’s tactic with relief.  
“I told you it would get intense from here on,” Kabuto said, pushing up his glasses.

The constant motion was starting to wear on your teammates. “I can’t take it anymore,” Sakura complained before collapsing to her hands and knees.  
“Sakura!” Naruto hovered over Sakura, looking to see if she was okay.  
“For crying out loud, how far have we walked?” she asked. “The tower hasn’t gotten a bit closer…” You looked up at the tower. Sakura was right, it was exactly the same distance away that it was when you’d started.  
“We’ve been found,” you say. “We’re caught in a loop, it’s a genjutsu. There’s an enemy out there waiting for us to run out of energy so they can kill us when we can’t fight them anymore.”  
“It seems that we’re already within the enthusiastic welcome,” Kabuto agrees with you. “Take a look at that.” You all follow with your eyes to where his finger is pointing. Right there in front of you is the same centipede that Naruto killed earlier. His loud mouth would get him killed someday, maybe today even.  
“It can’t be!” Naruto shouts. “What on earth is going on?”  
“A genjutsu, huh…?” Sasuke looked around.  
“So it seems. We were lured in perfectly,” Kabuto said with a frustrated look on his face. You were irritated with yourself for not noticing earlier. Normally you were more aware of your surroundings than that, but it seemed that the events of the past four days wore you down more than you’d thought. “It seems they were meticulously careful, and we were made to walk around the same place in a circle.” Even if you’d failed to catch on to the genjutsu earlier, you absolutely refused to be caught by surprise when the person who created it decided to attack. Closing your eyes, you expanded your consciousness to scan the trees around you. You hadn’t been at it for long at all before you sensed someone’s chakra above you and to the right.  
“Up there,” you warned your companions, pointing to the place you’d sensed the chakra. Suddenly, lots of guys that looked the same began emerging from the branches around you. Judging by the way they moved, they were all clones, which is why you didn’t sense them. The real enemy was hiding somewhere, using clones to attack while staying safe themselves. Unfortunately for them, you knew where they were. Moving closer to Sasuke, you put a hand on his shoulder to catch his attention and whispered into his ear. “Can you distract these guys for a while? I know where the people controlling these things are, but if they know I’m coming for them I’ll be swarmed by clones before I can get to them.” Sasuke nodded to show that he understood.  
“It seems they’ve appeared,” he said.  
“This is the perfect handicap!” At least someone was happy about the situation.   
“Cornered rats,” one of the clones chuckled, angering Naruto.  
“Shut up!” he yelled, launching himself towards the clone that insulted him. At first, it looked like the clone was weak enough that it was easily taken out by one punch. Then, Naruto’s fist went straight through it. The clone’s body was made out of some sort of stick black goo, and Naruto ended up breaking right through its side. His momentum sent him skidding across the ground as a second clone grew from the place where the original was damaged, leaving the clone with two torsos on one set of legs. The second torso pulled a kunai from somewhere within the goo and attacked Naruto from behind while he was still on the ground.  
“Naruto!” Sasuke shouted, Sharingan now activated. Before the clone could land a hit, Sasuke threw several shuriken, severing its arm. You looked around for an opening to escape without being noticed. Meanwhile, the clone turned towards Sasuke and threw a kunai at him. For whatever reason, instead of dodging Sasuke just watched it come closer until he was tackled to the ground by Kabuto.  
“Sasuke-kun!” yelled Sakura. Kabuto got up leaving Sasuke stunned on the ground. You fell back to his side and crouched down next to him.  
“Get up,” you told him and offered him a hand. He didn’t take it, instead lying completely still on the ground. “Sasuke?” You were getting concerned. Then, you saw that the mark on his neck was that fiery color again, and was spreading across his skin. “Damn,” you swore under your breath. With Sasuke in this condition, you didn’t feel confident leaving him to go after the people who were hiding in the forest. You wanted to stay beside him and cover for him. On the other hand, if you could take out the enemy, they wouldn’t be attacking him anymore. “Sakura,” you said, turning to your pink-haired teammate. “Look after Sasuke for me, okay?” She looked confused, but nodded in agreement anyway. Shooting one last concerned look at Sasuke, you made a break for the trees. The clones were a genjutsu, as you’d realized when they hadn’t disappeared like Naruto’s shadow clones. You could just ignore them and go directly to the enemy. When you reached the trunk of one of the trees you paused to slam your palm against it. As soon as you made contact, anything touching the tree was part of your consciousness, including the things touching whatever it was touching. You quickly became aware of three people crouching in the trees. Behind you, you heard the sound of thirty or so Narutos going on the offensive. ‘Perfect,’ you thought. ‘That should be a pretty good distraction.’ You ascended to the treetops to stalk your unwitting ‘prey’.  
“Even if that kid has all those clones,” you heard someone say below you, “he’ll run out of energy eventually if we keep it going long enough.” Silently, you dropped down to their level, landing behind them.   
“You’re right,” you agreed. The three ninja whirled around to face you, shock clear on their faces. “Even that guy would get tired after fighting all night. Unfortunately, I don’t believe this will last that long.” Laying a hand on the tree trunk next to you, you poured chakra into it. The wood creaked and groaned as it began to move, and the three in front of you scrambled to escape. They weren’t fast enough, however, and a thick branch caught all three of them, flinging them out of the tree and down into the midst of the battle below. You quickly followed after them as you pulled your sai out. When the first one made impact with the ground, the clones disappeared faster than they had shown up. “Heads up, you guys!” you called out to your companions.  
“What?!” Naruto screeched. “I never even saw you leave!” You grinned.  
“Neither did they.” The three on the ground pushed themselves up and prepared to defend themselves. You stalked forward, stopping in front of them. “So, which scroll do you have, hm?”  
“Nice try,” the one in the middle said as they all made a hand seal. “But we’re still not unlucky. This time around, we’ll show you our Ninjutsu! Ninja Art: Fog Clone Jutsu!” Where only three were standing before, twenty were before you.  
“Shadow clones?” Naruto asked, confused.  
“No, they’re just regular clones,” Sasuke corrected him. “However, he’s up to something. Be careful!” Naruto didn’t look worried.  
“Hah! If they’re just clones, then there’s real bodies in there, too. I’ll kick their butts right and left until I run into them.” Naruto charged into the crowd of clones.  
“Naruto!” Sakura called after him. “That’s reckless!” It was pretty reckless, but it was the best way to go about it. Without saying a word, you dove into the fray alongside your teammate. You were still locked on to the chakra of the real bodies, so you knew where they were – underground. The real question was how to get down there to get at them. That question was answered quickly when you saw a hand rise out of the ground to throw a kunai. Diving forward, you grabbed onto the person’s arm and pulled them up out of the ground.  
“Caught you,” you sung. He tried to rip his arm out of your grasp, but you knee-ed him in the stomach before he could escape. He fell to the ground coughing, right arm still in your hand. You landed a finishing blow across the back of his neck and the clones that looked like him disappeared from the mix as he fell unconscious. A few feet away, you saw another hand pop up to attack, and dealt with that one the same as the first. With two of the enemies out of the battle, the number of clones left was only one third. “Where oh where could the last ninja be?” you sang out, looking around for another hand. You could still sense the last enemy beneath the ground, but now that his comrades were defeated he wasn’t showing himself.   
“Wait!” a voice called out from underneath you. “I surrender!”   
“Then come out,” you told him. The last one rose from the ground, the Heaven Scroll in his hand. He placed it in front of you and backed away.  
“Take this and leave peacefully,” he asked you.   
“Very wise decision.” You picked up the scroll and tossed it to Sasuke. “Get out of here, alright? I might change my mind and take you and your friends out for real.” The guy scrambled to gather his teammates and disappeared into the forest as fast as he could.  
“_____-chan,” Sakura walked up behind you. “Were you really going to kill them?” You laughed, turning around to clap her on the shoulder.  
“Don’t be ridiculous! I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to attack us from behind as we walked away!” Sakura giggled in relief. The rest of the group gathered around the two of you.  
“Good for you guys,” Kabuto congratulated you. There was still something about him you didn’t like. When you looked at Sasuke, you could tell he was thinking the same thing.

Finally, after almost five days, you arrived at the tower, concluding your participation in the second exam. Sasuke, who was still weak from the effects of the curse mark, leaned on your shoulder while Sakura eyed the two of you jealously. As you walked up the steps, two ninja stepped out of the bushes.  
“Oh, it’s you guys,” Kabuto said to them.   
“You’re late, Kabuto,” chastised one.  
“Sorry, I got a bit involved in something,” Kabuto apologized. You’d been wondering where his team was. It only raised more questions, however, because now you were wondering why, when he had two scrolls and had reached the tower, did he come back for your team.  
“But, thanks to you, we got both the scrolls,” Naruto said.   
“No, it’s because you guys fought hard.” Kabuto waved Naruto’s praise off. ‘Damn straight it’s because we fought hard,’ you thought. “You were amazing, Naruto-kun!” Naruto swelled with pride at the compliment. “We’re going through this door. I wish us both luck.” With that, Kabuto and his teammates disappeared through the door next to yours. When they were gone, the four of you turned to your own door and Naruto pushed it open, tearing the paper that was pasted across the crack.  
“There’s nobody here,” Naruto said as you all walked across the empty room. Sasuke straightened up and removed his arm from your shoulder.  
“I’m alright now, _______.” You couldn’t deny being a little disappointed. Well, you could, but not effectively.  
“Say, say, what are we supposed to do?” Naruto looked around the room for answers.  
“Open the scrolls,” you suggested. “That sign over there says something about Heaven and Earth, so that’s my best guess.” Naruto pulled the scrolls out of his bag and handed one to Sakura.   
“Okay then, I’m going to open it,” he announced. At the same time, they both pulled back the edges of the scrolls and rolled them open. What was revealed was some sort of weird marking that didn’t really say anything.  
“Huh? What’s this?” Naruto tilted the scroll at different angles as if doing so would make the answer appear.  
“A man…?” Sakura guessed. To you, it almost looked like a summoning seal. Suddenly, a bubble appeared in the middle of each of the scrolls that burst open allowing smoke to spill out.  
“It’s a summoning jutsu!” Sasuke shouted. “Quickly, drop the scrolls!” The two dropped the scrolls on the ground. Smoke continued to pour out of the scrolls, forming a cloud. As the smoke cleared, a figure was revealed.  
“Oh, hey there, sensei!” you greeted your old teacher. “I haven’t seen you since we left the academy. How’s it going?”  
“Hi!” Iruka-sensei responded. “It’s been a long time.” The two of you grinned at each other. You’d always gotten along pretty well, you took care of his plants while he was on missions.  
“W-What’s going on?” Sakura demanded.  
“Our kind and handsome sensei has come to escort us out of the forest, obviously,” you tell her.  
“Exactly!” Iruka-sensei says. “It appears you guys have had a rough time of it. At the end of this second exam, we Chuunin are to welcome the test takers. I just happened to be given the important task of being the messenger for you guys.” Iruka stepped off of the scrolls and started walking towards you. He came to a stop in front of you and pulled out a watch. “Just in time,” he sighed in relief. “Everyone…” he put the watch back in his pocket. “Congratulations on surviving the second exam. To celebrate your passing, I’d like to treat you to some Ichiraku ramen, but…” Naruto started squirming at the mention of ramen.  
“Ohh… Cool!” he yelled, rushing across the room to tackle your sensei in a bear hug.  
“H-Hey, Naruto! Listen to the end…” Naruto didn’t listen, he just kept yelling ‘cool’ over and over. Eventually he let Iruka go, but he kept on yelling about ramen and how he was the best. Sasuke and Sakura collapsed to the ground, exhausted.   
“Shut up!” Sakura told Naruto.  
“Man, that scatterbrained part of you is the same as always,” Iruka-sensei commented with a sigh.   
“I see,” Sasuke spoke up. “If we had looked at the scroll in the middle of the exam, what were you going to do, Iruka-sensei?” Iruka walked over to where the scrolls lay on the floor.  
“Sasuke, you’re a sharp one, as usual.” He held up one of the scrolls. “You guessed right. The rules of this exam were to test your conclusive mission execution ability. To put it simply, in the case of the scrolls being opened contrary to the rules… I was ordered to knock unconscious the test takers in front of me until the end of the exam.” Sasuke laughed.  
“Good thing you didn’t open the scroll,” he said shooting Naruto an amused look.  
“Kabuto… thank you!” Naruto prayed to the glasses clad ninja.  
“Oh, yeah, sensei…” Sakura looked at Iruka. “What’re the letters on the wall? They’re kind of vermiculated and we don’t understand the meaning at all.”  
“Actually, explaining that is one more of my duties,” Iruka said. “Give it a read. These are the Chuunin instructions Master Hokage recorded. Heaven in this text refers to the human mind. Earth refers to the human body. If ‘Heaven’ does not exist, enrich your knowledge and prepare for the chance. In other words… if your weaknesses are inside your head, Naruto, learn various logics in preparing for your missions.” Naruto crossed his arms and glared while Sakura covered a smile with her hand.  
“Heh! So meddlesome!” he complained.  
“If “Earth” does not exist, run through the fields in search of an advantage,” your sensei continued explaining. “If your weaknesses are in your physical strength, Sakura, it means you must not slack off on your daily training.” Sakura rubbed the back of her head with a sheepish expression on her face. “And if you combine both Heaven and Earth, any perilous mission in the right way, in other words, what can also be called a rule of might, can become a safe mission.”  
“Then, what about the spot with the missing letter?” Sakura asked.  
“The letter refers to Chuunin,” he answers. “The one letter for person that was in the scroll from earlier goes there. These five days of survival were to test the test-takers’ fundamental abilities as Chuunin. And you guys cleared it in fine style. Chuunin is of unit leader class. They have the responsibility of leading a team. Be more deeply aware of the necessity of physical strength and knowledge in missions! I want you to take on the next step, never forgetting these Chuunin instructions. That is all of the messenger task I was given.”  
“Got it!” Naruto shouted, saluting Iruka-sensei. You would definitely pass this exam, for the sake of your retirement. No matter what, you would pass. Despite his words, Iruka looked worried.  
“But, as for the final third exam, don’t push it too far. Especially you, Naruto. You’re the biggest worry…”  
“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto interrupted him. “From when I received the Leaf headband, I was no longer your Academy student you know? There’s nothing to worry about! Believe it!” He grabbed his headband. “Also, this is the proof you gave me that I’m full-fledged, right? That I’m scatterbrained my not have changed, but I’m not a kid anymore! I’m now a ninja!” It was quiet for a moment as the two looked at each other.  
“I see,” Iruka-sensei said, a small smile spreading across his face. “I’m sorry, Naruto.”


	13. Prequel to the Third Exam?

After the conclusion of the second exam, all those who had passed were gathered together along with their Jounin leaders. You looked forward to seeing what the next portion of the exam would be. Everyone stood silently while waiting for the next portion to be announced. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Gaara standing with his team. That red hair of his was really eye catching. Sasuke saw where you were looking and made a noise of annoyance that was heard by the short sand ninja. He turned to look at you. It was the second time he’d caught you staring, which was quite embarrassing, but you did your best to cover it up with a small wave. Gaara looked confused that someone would greet him, but he slowly returned the gesture before facing the front again. It was obvious that Sasuke wanted to ask you about the exchange, but he didn’t get the chance because Anko, the proctor of the Second Exam, began to speak.  
“We will now have an explanation of the Third Exam from Hokage-sama,” she announced. “Everyone please pay attention. Hokage-sama, please do the honors.” The Hokage took two steps forward and cleared his throat.  
“The Third Exam will begin. But before the explanation, there’s one thing I want to make clear to all of you.” The expression on his face was serious enough that you knew it couldn’t be anything good. “It’s about the true purpose of this exam. Why we do a joint exam with the allied nations.” You already had a pretty good idea where this was going. “’To maintain good relations with the allied nations’ and ‘heighten the level of the ninja’… do not let those reasons deceive you. This ‘exam’, so to speak, is,” he paused, clearly for dramatic effect, and took a puff of smoke from his pipe before continuing, “the epitome of a war between the allied nations.”  
“What do you mean?” Tenten asked from behind you.  
“If we go back through history, the allied nations right now were neighboring countries that have fought each other over and over again. To avoid wasting military power, those countries decided to choose a place to fight. That is the beginning of the Chuunin Selection Exam.” Several people seemed surprised, but you had already known this. Despite your lack of interest in history, your mother had always made sure you were aware of it. She’d been fascinated by the tales of war and subterfuge that made up your nation’s history. As a result, most of your childhood bedtime stories had been about the Great War and the legendary Sanin. After she died, you made sure to remember all the things she told you as a way to keep her close.  
“Why do we have to do that?” Naruto demanded, extremely confused. “We’re not doing this to select Chuunin?”  
“Yes, this exam does examine those who are worthy of the Chuunin title,” the Hokage explained. “But it’s also a place where ninja fight and carry their country’s dignity. In this third exam, feudal lords and famous people from various countries who may be potential clients are invited here as guests. And feudal lords with hidden villages and ninja leaders will see your battles. If there’s a significant difference in power, the strong country will be flooded with jobs. If a country is seen as weak, their jobs will decrease. And at the same time, countries are able to show how their village has grown and possess excellent military power to the adjacent countries. In other words, they can put foreign pressure on them.” ‘In other words, we’re a billboard for the Land of Fire,’ you thought.  
“So why do we have to fight with the risk of losing our lives?” The next person who spoke up was Kiba, that guy with the cute dog.  
“A country’s power is the village’s power,” the Hokage answered. “And a ninja’s true power is only born in life or death battle. This exam is also a place to show off the ninja power of one’s country. Since this is an exam where you fight with your life on the line, it has a meaning and your predecessors have fought and dreamed of being in the Chuunin Exam because of it.”  
“But why do you say it’s to promote good relations?” asked Tenten.  
“I told you at the beginning not to get it confused with that,” the Hokage chided her. “The custom of risking one’s life and fighting to maintain balance… that is a good relation in the world of ninja. This is a life-or-death battle for your dream and your village’s dignity.” He was right about that one. You were putting your life on the line here to realize your dream. Even if it looked like you might die, you would win and pass this test.  
“I don’t care.” Gaara’s quiet but deadly voice cut through your thoughts. “Tell us the details of this life-or-death exam.” The Hokage nodded in consent.  
“Then I will now begin the explanation of the Third Exam, but…” you heaved an internal sigh. The past week had been full of speeches, and it seemed like every speech had some sort of prologue and epilogue to go with it. It would be nice if someone in this exam would just get to the point. Gaara’s words had been spot on as far as you were concerned. Before the Hokage could continue his explanation, a ninja appeared in front of him, kneeling.  
“Excuse me, Hokage-sama,” the man said. “I, Gekkou Hayate, the judge, will explain.”  
“Please do,” the Hokage gave him permission to continue.  
“Everyone, it’s nice to meet you,” Hayate greeted you. He paused to cough before continuing. “Everyone, before the Third Exam, there’s something I want you to do.” He kept having to stop his sentence to cough, and you were beginning to wonder if he was going to keel over right there in front of you. He recovered himself after a couple seconds. “Fight in some preliminary matches to see who gets to advance to the Third Exam’s main battle.” Some people were confused while others were just angry. You were on the irritated people side. Of course it would be too much to ask for something involving so many people and so many officials to be anything close to expedient. Since this was an advertisement, they’d definitely have auditions. After all, you couldn’t have people like Sakura or Ino going in front of the leaders of other nations and making idiots out of themselves. So yes, you were irritated that this was taking so long, but you also understood the reasoning behind that. “In this case, it must have been because the First and Second Exams were too easy, I don’t know but there are too many examinees left. According to Chuunin regulations, we must decrease the number of participants for the Third Exam. As previously mentioned by Hokage-sama, there are many guests for the Third Exam, so we cannot just have a lot of matches. We’re on limited time as well. So, those who aren’t feeling well…” he was unable to continue as he was struck by a sudden fit of coughing. It lasted a lot longer than the others, and people were starting to be concerned. “Excuse me,” he said when he got it under control. “If anyone wants to quit after hearing the explanation please let me know. The preliminary matches will begin immediately.”  
Your thoughts turned to Sasuke. After the Forest of Death, you knew that he wasn’t in good condition. You also knew that he would never admit that. The Second exam had just ended – as was voiced by many unhappy people who stood there still covered in the scrapes and bruises they’d collected in the forest. Though you weren’t in peak condition, you were confident that you could hold your own against most of the people in the room. After all, they weren’t in the best shape either.  
“I forgot to mention this, but you will have one-on-one matches from here on out,” Hayate continued. “So please withdraw if you wish.” Just then, Sasuke winced and grabbed his shoulder.  
“Sasuke-kun…” Sakura took a half step towards him, her eyes full of concern.  
“It’s the mark, isn’t it?” you asked.  
“Sasuke-kun, you should withdraw from the preliminary matches. You’ve been acting weird ever since that Orochimaru guy beat you.” Sasuke was refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “That bruise hurts even now, right? At this rate…” she started to shake as she remembered what had happened in the forest. “Please, please stop. I’m afraid.” Sakura wiped away the tears that were starting to form. You knew that no matter how much she pleaded, it wouldn’t make a difference.  
“Sasuke,” you spoke up. The team’s attention shifted to you. Your raven haired teammate looked apprehensive, probably thinking that you were about to tell him to step down, too. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to continue in your condition, but I won’t tell you to withdraw.” Everyone was surprised.  
“______-chan!” Sakura clutched your shoulder. “What are you saying? If he continues…” you brushed her hand away and looked Sasuke in the eye.  
“I know that nothing any of us say will stop you,” you told him. “But if you get yourself killed, I’ll find you in the afterlife and kick your ass.” He looked shocked for a moment, but then understanding flashed in his eyes and he nodded.  
“Understood.” Maybe you weren’t the best at expressing yourself, but at least Sasuke got the message. You just wanted him to be careful.  
“I’ll quit,” Kabuto announced from the other side of the room, catching all of you by surprise. Hayate flipped through his papers until he found Kabuto’s information.  
“You are Konoha’s Yakushi Kabuto-kun? You may leave, then.” Kabuto nodded and began to walk away, but Naruto’s shouting caused him to pause.  
“Kabuto-san, why are you quitting?!” the energetic ninja demanded.  
“I’m sorry, Naruto-kun,” Kabuto apologized, “but my body is completely worn out already. Even before the First Exam, after I had that quarrel with the Sound guys, I couldn’t hear anything in my left ear. I can’t fight right away, especially if it’s a life-or-death battle…” Naruto looked at the ground, disappointed that his friend was leaving. You kept watching Kabuto, however, and didn’t miss the shady interaction he had with his teammates. They spoke quietly enough that you couldn’t hear what was said, but you could sense a lot of tension. The knowing look he shot one of them didn’t help to ease your suspicions. Whatever he’d been planning this whole time, it wasn’t over yet. It was far more likely that it had just begun. After a couple moments of talking in hushed tones, one of the others of Kabuto’s team raised his hand.  
“I will be withdrawing as well,” he announced. Hayate found his name on the list.  
“Tsurugi Misumi-kun, right?” The man nodded. “Alright, you can leave, too.” He joined Kabuto and the two left the room together.  
“May I assume that there are no more people who wish to retire?” Hayate asked after the two were gone. It seemed that Sakura hadn’t given up on getting Sasuke out of the competition. She was about to raise her hand, presumably to tell the judge about Sasuke’s bruise, but he quickly caught her wrist.  
“Don’t you dare tell them about this mark,” Sasuke growled at her.  
“Sasuke-kun, why do you have to act so tough?” Sakura was on the verge of tears again. “I don’t want to see you suffering anymore! I don’t know what _____ is thinking, saying she won’t try to stop you, but you can’t fight here.”  
“It doesn’t matter to you!” Sasuke accused the tearful girl. “You’re just being nosy.” Sakura was taken aback. “I told you before, I’m an avenger.” He glared at her, his patience worn thin by exhaustion and her persistence. “This isn’t just an exam to me, and I don’t care about being a Chuunin, either. Am I strong? I just want the answer to that. I’m going to fight the strong guys, and those strong guys are here!” Well, if fighting strong people was his goal, then staying in the exams would get him there. Especially if he was put against Gaara. Despite his small stature, he was probably the strongest person here. In all honesty, you’d prefer that Sasuke not go against him, since you didn’t want your teammate to die or be seriously injured. “I will not allow even you to take away my path.” This was why you’d decided against trying to stop Sasuke. He had the kind of determination that wouldn’t be broken by mere words alone.  
“Stop acting cool, you idiot!” Naruto scolded Sasuke. “Sakura-chan’s worried about you,” he was cut off by the target of his rant.  
“Naruto, I want to fight with you, too.” The blonde stared at his teammate, speechless. He had finally received the affirmation he’d been wanting.  
“Oh?” you cut in with a teasing tone. “What about me? I’ll be insulted if you tell me I’m not good enough.” It was obvious you weren’t serious at all, considering the tone of your voice.  
“Would you have the will to kill me in a battle, _______?” Sasuke asked, equally teasing.  
“Touché, Storm Cloud, you got me there,” you grinned. “But not killing you isn’t the same thing as not winning.” You didn’t miss the jealous look in Sakura’s eyes as she saw how well the two of you got along. It probably stung even more after she’d just been snapped at. Of course, you were mostly sure she had nothing to worry about. Sasuke didn’t seem like the type to date anybody, so it was unlikely that you’d ‘steal’ him from her. But you were slightly curious, so you asked him, “How about you? If we fought, would you kill me?” You made sure to keep the tone light. Wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea. Well, the right idea, but they couldn’t know that.  
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I’d let you win,” he replied. ‘Maybe’ wasn’t the most definitive answer, but you’d take it. You would also have to kick yourself later for flirting with him. Especially hard, since your irritation at yourself for flirting was only half-hearted.  
“When did you two get so friendly?” Naruto shouted, pointing at the two of you. “______, I thought you hated him!” ‘Oh, yeah, he introduced me to those kids as the person who hates Sasuke…’ You laughed and patted the orange-clad ninja on the back.  
“Sorry, Naruto, I decided he’s sort of okay.” You thought about it for a moment before adding, “Maybe,” to the end. “But I’m still ditching all of you to become a hermit someday. That includes you, Storm Cloud.” Sasuke rolled his eyes, clearly stating that he didn’t believe you. Honestly, you didn’t either. Could you have two people in a hermit hut, though?  
“Then, let’s begin the preliminary matches,” Hayate announced. The time to relax was over. You wondered who you would be paired against. Hopefully it wouldn’t be Gaara. “It will be a one-on-one match. In other words, it will be like real combat. Now that we have exactly twenty people, we will have ten matches and the winners will be able to advance to the Third Exam. There are no rules. You will fight until the other person dies, is knocked out, or admits defeat. If you do not want to die, please give up immediately. However, if I judge that the match is over I may stop you to prevent any unnecessary deaths. The thing that will hold your destiny…” he paused and looked to Anko, who nodded and spoke into a small microphone that hung near her mouth. At her signal, a metal panel on the wall began to rise, revealing a screen. “Will be this,” Hayate picked up right where he left off. “This electric bulletin board will randomly display the names of two fighters for each match. Without further ado, I will now display the names for the first match. Everybody watched the screen intently as names rolled across faster than anyone could read. It was like rolling a pair of dice. After a while, two names locked onto the screen – Akadou Yoroi and Uchiha Sasuke.


	14. First a Fight, Then a Nap.

Upon seeing the names displayed on the screen, your heart sunk. But, you tried to remind yourself, the sooner he fought, the sooner he would be able to receive medical treatment. ‘That’s right, just look on the bright side,’ you thought.  
“Those whose names were displayed, step up,” Hayate instructed. Sasuke walked to the front of the room, as did the last remaining member of Kabuto’s team. He was the one Kabuto had been arguing with before he and his other teammate left. “The first match’s fighters are Akadou Yoroi and Uchiha Sasuke. Are there any objections?” You glanced at Sakura to see what she would do. She was determined to stop Sasuke from fighting earlier, so you wondered if she would say anything now.  
“No!” Sasuke spoke quickly. He was probably worried about the same thing. Now that it was settled, you took a moment to scrutinize his opponent. It didn’t take long for you to decide that you hated his face. It was really angry looking, like the kind of guy who always finds something to be mad about. He was probably self-righteous when he was mad, too. Those spectacles just irritated you. It was like they were embedded in his eye sockets. Sasuke definitely had to beat him. The problem was, you knew that he couldn’t use any chakra based attacks due to the mark on his shoulder, and the use of those kinds of techniques was the basis of his fighting style.  
“We will now begin the first match,” Hayate announced. “Everyone other than the two fighters, please move up there.” He gestured to the balcony that went around the edge of the room on the second floor. Everyone but your team began to file up the stairs so the match could begin.  
“That means us, too, you guys,” you said, grabbing their arms and pulling them towards the viewing area. As you dragged them away, you noticed Kakashi stopping next to Sasuke to say something to him. ‘He’s probably telling him to be careful.’ You didn’t doubt that your sensei had already noticed something was wrong with Sasuke, and you wouldn’t put it past him to know what it was, either. Once you reached the stairs, you saw that everyone from the Leaf was on one side, while the rest of the villages were on the other side. That left you with two options: join the Leaf ninja or take this chance to observe the behaviors of people you didn’t know that might be your opponents later. True, you couldn’t learn much from watching someone stand around, but you could get a hint about the way they thought by watching their reactions during the battle. People often looked more pleased when someone did something similar to what they would do.  
“______, why are we going this way?” Naruto asked when you started walking up the stairs to the side of the balcony that the other villages’ ninja were on. “All our friends are on the other side, right? Shouldn’t we be over there?” You didn’t stop, but you did tell him what you were doing.  
“I’m going to observe these people,” you told him. “I already know the fighting style of most of the people on the other side, but I don’t know anything about the rest of the competitors. A good ninja is always looking for new information.” Even with your explanation, neither of your teammates were sure they wanted to follow you.  
“Well, you can do that, but I’m gonna go watch with our friends,” Naruto said. He pulled his arm out of your grasp and climbed the stairs to the other side. Sakura looked like she wanted to follow him, but she didn’t say anything. You sighed.  
“Go on, do what you want.” Sakura gave you one last uncertain look, then left to join Naruto. ‘Great, now I’m going to be walking into enemy territory alone,’ you complained silently. ‘It might be for the best, though. I’ll probably be able to concentrate better.’ Ascending the steps to the balcony full of strangers was uncomfortable, but you made sure to meet the eyes of anyone who looked your way. There was no way you’d look like you were nervous in front of these people. You came to a stop a few feet away from the group of Sand ninja. It was barely two seconds before Gaara was right next to you.  
“Shouldn’t you be on the other side with your team?” he asked. The dangerous edge to his smooth voice sent a shiver down your spine. Whether it was a good or bad shiver wasn’t clear. ‘Maybe it’s morally ambiguous.’ You weren’t entirely sure you should tell one of the people you were going to observe that you’d be observing them, but he’d know if you lied so you decided to tell the truth.  
“I’m going to observe the people over here, to see how they react to the match. It’ll let me see their personalities, if only a little.” Gaara stared at you silently for a long moment, then turned his eyes towards the battlefield without saying anything else. You followed his example.  
“Begin.” With Hayate’s order, the match was officially started. The first move was made by Kabuto’s teammate, who threw several shuriken at Sasuke. The projectiles were blocked with a kunai, but the pain from the mark caused its bearer to collapse momentarily. While Sasuke was down, his opponent took the opportunity to attack and sent him sliding across the floor. A kunai slammed into the ground stopped the slide and gave Sasuke the opportunity to trap Yoroi in a tight hold. For a moment, it seemed your teammate had the upper hand.  
“He did it!” Naruto shouted triumphantly. Your eyes flicked around to the faces of the ninja around you. They all looked pretty skeptical. It was clear they didn’t think that the match was over quite yet. To tell the truth, neither did you. Those suspicions were confirmed when light blue chakra became visible on Yoroi’s hand which was then pressed to Sasuke’s chest. After a few moments, he was able to pull his hand away from Sasuke with no effort at all. He easily extracted himself from the younger ninja’s hold. Whatever he’d done, it had sapped Sasuke’s physical strength. Most of the people around you looked taken aback, or the same as usual in Gaara’s case. Kankuro, however, looked a little excited. ‘So he’s the type who likes surprise twists in a fight.’ You tucked that knowledge away in a little pocket of your mind, just in case you needed it later. As Yoroi was moving away, he drove his fist into Sasuke’s stomach, leaving the boy gasping for breath while he leapt away. Now that he had the upper hand, the man dove back in and used the same technique, gabbing Sasuke’s forehead in his hand and dragging the energy out of him. Worry for your teammate overrode your plan and you gave all your attention to the battle before you. Though you had said that you wouldn’t interfere and would support Sasuke’s decision to continue, there was a large part of you that wanted to fling yourself over the railing into the arena and protect your storm cloud like you’d promised in the forest. The hands that had been trying to push Yoroi away fell to the floor, the energy to keep them up no longer there. You watched, willing him to do something to protect himself. Slowly, one of Sasuke’s hands formed a fist.  
“You… little!” Sasuke growled and kicked his opponent in the stomach. The man stumbled back and fell to the floor, stunned that the dark haired boy still had the energy to attack. After a moment, he stood up and chuckled.  
“To think that you still have the strength even though you’re just a guinea pig.” Sasuke struggled to catch his breath while the other talked. “Put your mind at ease,” Yoroi told him. “I’ll end this right away!” The blue chakra appeared on his hand again as he rushed Sasuke. He made several attempts to hit your teammate with his power, but each one was dodged. One jab brushed his hair slightly, but it was enough to make him stumble. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?!” Yoroi taunted. “You already finished?” Sasuke tried to hit him with a sweeping kick, but he jumped out of the way. Feeling Gaara shift beside you, you glanced in his direction. He looked unimpressed with the battle so far, which reminded you that he had been wanting to fight Sasuke, and had been since the day you’d met. Considering your friend’s weakened state, the Sand ninja was probably disappointed with his current performance.  
“Sasuke!” Naruto yelled from the other side of the room. “You call yourself an Uchiha with that? Don’t be looking so lame! Give your best!” Sasuke gave him a look that said ‘are you kidding me’, his breath ragged from the exertion he’d already been subjected to. Then, he suddenly seemed to have an epiphany.  
“You can’t afford to be inattentive!” the ugly opponent chided as he charged Sasuke again. “I’ll finish you with this!” You hoped Sasuke broke those weird sunglasses of his. The next series of jabs was dodged with no attempt to retaliate until Sasuke disappeared from his opponent’s view, dropping low to deliver a kick straight up into the man’s stomach. Ugly Glasses flew into the air, blood arcing from his mouth. Sasuke leapt to pursue him. He appeared behind the older ninja, who gasped in alarm.  
“That may have been borrowed, but from here on is original,” Sasuke told him. ‘Borrowed?’ you wondered to yourself. You’d never seen that attack before. A quick glance around the room gave you a pretty good idea of who he’d borrowed it from, since that round eyes guy was grasping the railing and staring at Sasuke in disbelief. ‘He must have learned it from Round Eyes at the First Exam while I was taking a nap.’ That would explain why you didn’t know of it. “It’s over.” Sasuke’s body was aligned perfectly with Yoroi’s as he pushed a hand seal against his back in preparation for the finishing blow. Before he made his move, however, the mark on Sasuke’s neck began to glow, paralyzing him with pain. The fiery mark spread slowly across his face and over his body. Several seconds passed with you thinking that the mark had taken control, but with a burst of determination from its host, it receded until there was nothing but the small black symbol on his neck. Sasuke’s lips twitched into a small smirk as he placed the palm of his hand against his opponent’s back and used the connection as leverage to swing his leg around in kick which was blocked.  
“You’re weak,” Yoroi said, regaining his confidence. The attack wasn’t over, though. Sasuke used the momentum of the previous kick to spin around and drive his fist into the older man’s face which changed his trajectory. Now he was falling downwards, his head threatening to crash into the concrete floor below. Still taking advantage of the momentum granted by his spinning attack style, Sasuke landed a blow to Yoroi’s stomach. Blood flew from the man’s mouth and hung in the air. The two ninja were near to hitting the ground when Sasuke executed one last attack. It was a hammering strike to his opponent’s abdomen with his heel. The force of his movements had slowly added up to make this last hit a finishing blow that drove the man into the ground. Sasuke skidded across the floor on his back and came to a stop a few feet away from where Ugly Glasses lay motionless on the cracked concrete. Neither of them moved. Hayate walked over to the larger ninja to check his vitals.  
“There’s no need to check,” Sasuke said as he pulled himself into a sitting position and wiped away the blood at the corner of his mouth.  
“I’m stopping this match from going any further,” the judge announced, standing. “Therefore, the winner of the first battle, Uchiha Sasuke passes the preliminaries.” Said winner was about to fall back to the ground but, before he had the chance to do so, Kakashi appeared behind him to prop him up with his leg.  
“Well, good job,” he congratulated his student, nose buried in the latest issue of Makeout Paradise. ‘I wonder if those books are really that good. Maybe I’ll try them.’  
“Sasuke!” Naruto hollered. “You won in a lame way! Look at you, all battered up! You idiot!” You rolled your eyes. Naruto would always be Naruto. It was obvious that he was just happy Sasuke was okay. A small grin slipped onto your lips. Of course, you were happy, too. The sound of heavy breathing next to you caught your attention. Once again, your gaze was drawn to Gaara. His arms were still crossed like they usually were, but his hands were tightly gripping them as he stared at Sasuke with razor-sharp focus. His entire body was trembling. The very air around him seemed to whisper ‘murder’. It was such an intensely dangerous feeling that you unconsciously took a half step sideways to put some distance in between the two of you. Gaara didn’t take any notice. He was completely consumed with his desire for violence. By the time you managed to drag your eyes away from him, Sasuke and Kakashi were already walking out the door.  
“Um, now then,” Hayate began speaking, drawing everyone’s attention to him. “We will get right to it and begin the second match.” Every eye in the room was turned towards the screen on the wall. Names flashed rapidly across until two froze in place – Abumi Zaku and Aburame Shino. You recognized both of the names. One of them was in your class at the academy, a guy who liked bugs a lot. The other was the guy from the Sound whose arms got broken by Sasuke when he’d been controlled by the mark in the Second Exam. You were fairly confident that Shino would win. The Sound ninja’s ability was entirely dependent upon the function of his arms, and the tall Leaf ninja could probably control those bugs of his even if he didn’t have any limbs. That, and there was no telling what kind of weird insect he had on him. “Both of you, Come forward,” the sickly judge requested. “We will now begin the second match,” he said when both participants were standing beside him. “Now then, please begin.” He stepped out of the arena so the battle could, as he said, begin.  
“If you fight here, you’ll be finished,” Shino warned his opponent. “Withdraw!” Zaku only scoffed at the advice.  
“Somehow, this one still works, so…” His left arm came out of the sling and he moved into a fighting stance. “One arm is enough to take care of you!” The Sound ninja darted forward to attack Shino remained still, only raising one arm to block the strike. Shino continued to tell his opponent that he wouldn’t be able to win, which only served to anger him.  
“Slicing Sound Wave!” A blast of sound was emitted from the hole in the spikey-haired ninja’s arm, sending a cloud of dust into the air. When it cleared, you could see that Shino was still standing. He was a little scuffed up, but otherwise seemed alright. Taking a closer look, you were able to see hundreds of tiny beetles crawling out of a hole in the stoic ninja’s face. ‘And that right there is why I will never hug that guy.’ His opponent was shaken up, too, but he hid it behind false confidence. “Heh! What kind of bluff are you trying to pull?” It didn’t last long. The façade fell the moment he noticed the army of bugs sneaking up behind him.  
“These things are parasitic insects,” Shino explained. The entomology lesson was in session. “They attack their prey in groups and eat chakra. If attacking in this amount, you’re finished, no mistake.” That would be an awful way to go, eaten by a herd of chakra sucking bugs. “If you don’t like that, give up. That would be in your best interest.” You had to hand it to Shino, he was actually a pretty merciful guy. Most people would show off and just finish their opponent, but he was giving him the chance to back out before he got himself killed. “If you use your left arm technique on me, I’ll simultaneously have the bugs exploit the opening from behind. Conversely, if you use your technique on the bugs, I’ll simultaneously exploit the opening. Either way, you won’t be able to get through this. An ace in the hole is something you set aside.” You kind of hoped that the guy would just surrender. This battle was taking up time, everyone knew who would win, and prolonging it wouldn’t get anybody anywhere. But, knowing what you did about Zaku, he definitely wouldn’t give up so quickly. After all, he’d tried to take Sasuke on when he was in god mode. The Sound ninja had no sense.  
“Don’t underestimate me!” he shouted, ripping his other arm from the sling. For a moment, he struggled to pull his right hand out of a fist, but eventually he was standing with one open palm aimed at Shino, and the other aimed at the insects. “An ace in the hole is something you set aside, right?! Take this!” Zaku attempted to blast each enemy with the sound from the holes in his hands, but the chakra he tried to force through his broken arms ended up exploding through his skin and escaping near his joints. He screamed in pain and let his arms fall to his sides, trembling. When he turned his hands upwards, you were able to see that the holes were jammed with small insects.  
“Earlier when I recommended that you give up, as a precautionary measure, I gave a suggestion to the bugs to block that troublesome wind hole with their bodies and remain still. This is what a real ace in the hole is.” You had to keep from laughing. ‘That had to be a pun.’ The fact that nobody else seemed to notice the joke – probably because it wasn’t actually meant to be one, but with Shino’s monotone, who knew what he was saying seriously and what he wasn’t – made it a little easier to control yourself. The Sound ninja tried to attack Shino, but ended up being backhanded across the arena. When he didn’t get back up, Hayate stepped forward to check him.  
“It seems it’s over,” he said once it was confirmed that Zaku was unconscious. The bandages on his arms were ripped apart and the skin near his elbows was full of holes. Shino wasn’t lying when he said it would be the end for him if he fought. “The winner! Aburame Shino.” Shino returned to his teammates and Zaku was carried out on a stretcher. “Umm, now then, I would like to get right to the next match.” A small exploding noise caught your attention and you turned to see Kakashi appearing near your remaining teammates. He could’ve had news about Sasuke, so you decided to go over there. Sakura was asking about him just as you arrived.  
“Yo, _____!” your sensei greeted you.  
“What’s up, sensei?” you responded.  
“Tell us how Sasuke is doing!” Sakura cut in.  
“Well, he’s fine. He’s sleeping soundly in the infirmary.” Your pink haired teammate sighed in relief and looked away, so she didn’t see the dark look that crossed Kakashi’s face. It didn’t escape you, however, and you wondered what really happened with Sasuke. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to ask because Naruto tugged insistently on your sleeve and pointed to the screen.  
“______, look!” You followed his finger and saw who the next two participants would be. The first name on the screen was yours, and the second was the name of that guy from Gaara’s team, Kankuro. “He’s that guy that we met with in the street that one time!”  
“Well, I guess that’s my cue,” you said, brushing off Naruto’s hand that still clung to your sleeve and descending the stairs to face your opponent. Your teammates watched with trepidation, the memory of the last meeting still fresh on their minds. It would be a lie to say you were at all confident. If that guy was on Gaara’s team, he probably didn’t have that rough of a time in the forest. You, on the other hand, had been beaten half to death by one of the Sanin. That was a pretty big handicap. There had been time to heal, of course, but he was likely still in peak condition.  
“So, it’s that brat from before, huh?” Kankuro sneered down at you. That irritated you, so you decided to pull out every stop. Not that you’d have held back otherwise, of course, but now you would be fighting with the intent to spite him at every opportunity. Since you were pretty sure he’d be using some form of trickery, you decided to immediately lock on to his chakra signature.  
“So, it’s that ugly cat clown from before,” you mocked him. “I have to say, I’m quite impressed – that you wear even more makeup than a prostitute, that is.” Your verbal jabs caused the Sand ninja to growl angrily.  
“Now then, please begin the third battle!” Hayate said. Like you’d planned, the second the battle began you locked your senses onto Kankuro’s chakra. Oddly enough, it wasn’t coming from his body that stood in front of you, but from the wrapped up object on his back. You immediately recalled that he was a puppet master. That meant that what you were looking at right now was his puppet, which was carrying him on its back. With that information in mind, you decided to ignore the puppet completely and focus all your attacks on his real body.  
“Are you ready to be beaten again, little girl?” puppet Kankuro taunted. Pulling out your sai, you flashed a sardonic smile his way.  
“Little girl, you say? As opposed to a real woman like you?” It was already known to you that Gaara’s teammate had a hot temper. If you could get him worked up, his control over the puppet would probably get a little sloppy since it required a large amount of concentration. You danced around him in a circle, trying to get behind the puppet so you could attack his real body. From the prolonged silence, you could tell that he was having a hard time thinking of a comeback. A hand dove into your pocket, searching for something you could use against him. What you pulled out was a large green leaf you’d gotten from the forest and another of your dried leaves, which gave you an interesting idea. ‘Time for some interference,’ you thought. Just like in the first exam, you brought the leaf to your lips and infused it with chakra. Then, when it was as full as it would get, you crushed it. For now, you would keep it in your palm until you could get a little closer to your target. The ‘target’ was standing in one place, spinning as you moved around him to keep you from getting at his back.  
“Are you only going to run in a circle or will you attack?” he asked. You ran in a circle a little longer just to spite him. Eventually, he got tired of waiting and lunged for you. Dodging the attack, you whipped around and blew the dust of your crushed leaf into his face. Tiny pieces of leaf coated the puppet’s body. “Trying to blind me or something?” Kankuro puppet laughed at your supposedly pathetic attempt to get the upper hand.  
“Or something,” you replied. Then, you activated the chakra in the leaf dust. Each piece that was touching one of the chakra strings Kankuro was controlling the puppet with severed that connection. Kankuro puppet lurched unsteadily as the false face fell off to reveal its true appearance. “Wow, you really do need makeup,” you teased. While the puppet was still out of Kankuro’s control, you darted around behind it and delivered a hard kick to the package on its back which caused it to collapse completely. The wrappings fell away to reveal an angry Kankuro made out of flesh and bone.  
“Damn you,” he growled. The Sand ninja tried to use his chakra to pull the puppet in front of him, but the chakra you’d scattered across it was still interfering. It was a good thing you’d thought of that, because you weren’t really in the physical condition to engage in close combat. Your rib still hurt, and was probably fractured, and you hadn’t had a full meal since before the forest.  
“Oh dear, did I kill your bodyguard, princess?” you asked in mock sorrow. Frustration was getting to Kankuro and he made a haphazard attempt to grab you. You danced back, just out of his reach and smiled. “Come now, darling, if you want a hug you’ll have to ask!” Oh how nice it was to taunt someone until it drove them insane. This was the kind of thing your life was missing. ‘I just had an amusing idea,’ you thought as you pulled out the large green leaf. You packed it with chakra like the last one and, when Kankuro’s attempts to hit you brought him close enough, stuck it to your opponent’s face. He tried to pull it off, but the chakra acted like glue and held it there. “In case you were wondering, that’s how you blind a person.” While he was blind and distracted, you dove in and kneed him in the stomach. Then, when he fell to his knees gasping for breath and still trying to claw the leaf off of his face so he could get that breath, you brought your foot down on his back. Since he was still a little shocked from both of those attacks, you sat on his back with your knees pinning his arms to the floor and grabbed the back of his head to slam his face into the ground. He was sufficiently stunned for now, but just to be sure you pulled the cat hat off of his head and used it to tie his hands behind his back. It was too bad for him that he’d made you mad. You were very creative when you wanted to get back at someone. It was also too bad for him that you weren’t afraid of resorting to stupid tricks like sticking a leaf to someone’s face. The combination of head trauma and lack of oxygen left him unconscious. Once you were sure he wouldn’t get up, you removed the leaf so he at least wouldn’t die.  
“______ is like an evil little kid,” you heard Naruto say from the balcony. ‘Well, I suppose that was somewhat immature,’ you admitted. But you won because of it, so you didn’t really care. Once again, Hayate came to check the unconscious party.  
“This battle is over,” he confirmed. “______ ______ is the winner of the third battle.” The medical ninja came out to take Kankuro away, and one of them approached you to ask if you sustained any injuries that required medical treatment. You considered your answer for a moment. On one hand, if you said no, you could stay and watch all of the battles. On the other hand, if you said yes, you could probably take a nap, and come back and watch the last two or three battles.  
“Yes, there is a possibility that I cracked a rib in the Second Exam,” you replied. ‘Nap time, here I come.’


	15. A Terrifying Beauty

‘How relaxing,’ you thought, letting yourself sink into the mattress of the infirmary bed. It had been quite a while since you’d had the opportunity to lie down somewhere comfortable. With the events of the past week, each section of the Chuunin Exams being back-to-back with no time to rest, you had been missing your usual ‘sleep and pretend other people don’t exist’ time. Hopefully the official Third Exam wouldn’t begin the moment the preliminaries were over. You’d like to have some time to practice and get to know your possible opponents better – which meant you would be stalking.  
The medical ninja that performed your checkup had healed your rib quite nicely, and you were glad that the constant dull ache was missing from your side. Now all that was left to do was to get some sleep, and maybe wake up in time to watch the last couple of battles. With any luck, they’d be good ones. It would be a shame to miss Gaara’s match.

Two hours later, you awoke feeling well rested and a great deal calmer than you had in a while. Never mind that Orochimaru was lurking around and waiting to kill or curse people. After that nap, the world was as it should have been. ‘I wonder who’s fighting now.’ That thought lead you to, regretfully, leave the bed and make your way back to the arena.

The mood in the arena was tense when you poked your head through the door. Of course, it had been tense from the beginning, but it was even more so now. It seemed that the last match had been between Hyuuga Hinata and Hyuuga Neji. Hinata was in a crouched position, a pained look on her face, and Neji was being held back by Hayate and three of the Jounin instructors. As you slipped into the room, Naruto, Sakura, and Lee jumped over the railing of the balcony and ran to Hinata.  
“Hinata!” they all shouted, running to make sure she was alright.  
“Hinata! Are you okay?” Naruto asked, his breathing uneven.   
“Naruto-kun…” It was clear that she had to struggle to get the words out. Whatever happened during the battle, it had taken its toll on her body. Since the battle was clearly over, you decided it would be okay to approach as well. “I…” her lips moved, but no sound came out, and then she slipped into unconsciousness.   
“Hey you, failure!” Neji’s imperious voice rung out in the dead silent arena. “I have two pieces of advice for you. First, if you intend to call yourself a Shinobi, stop that revolting cheering of yours. And the second… a failure will always be a failure. There’s no changing that!” You hadn’t had many interactions with the guy since he’d graduated before you, the only one you really remembered being before the first exam when he’d been acting superior and making demands, but from what you’d seen of him so far he was a very self-righteous person. People like him irritated you. They would never shut up, always blathering on and on about some cause or ideal that they tried to force one everyone around them, even though it really only applied to their own experiences.  
“Do you want to see about that?” Naruto challenged him as he stood up from where he had been crouching by Hinata’s side. Neji smirked and your orange clad teammate charged him. Before he could even reach his target, however, he was stopped by the round eyes guy. ‘I really need to learn his name…’ “You…!” Lee gave the brash ninja a warning look.  
“Naruto, I get where you’re coming from, believe me. But all fighting must be done officially in a match! The failure beats the gifted genius through sheer effort… Wouldn’t that make for an exciting main battle? Though, I am probably going to be the one fighting Neji… but it would be okay with me if you ended up fighting him, Naruto.” The bowl cut’s words calmed Naruto enough that he stopped his attack. ‘Hell, if that’s not foreshadowing, I don’t know what is,’ you thought.  
“Alright already,” the now pacified Naruto said before walking away. Round Eyes made eye-contact with his sensei – who looked incredibly similar to him – and gave him the thumbs up sign while also somehow managing to get his teeth to do that little flash that usually only happens in toothpaste ads. Big Bowl Cut returns the gesture, complete with the tooth flash. You would never understand those two. The main conflict appeared to be over, so you joined your teammates at Hinata’s side.  
The unconscious girl coughed, blood flying from her lips. Her sensei rushed to her side and opened her jacket to check her vitals. “Oh no! She’s gone into ventricle fib.” The red eyed woman glared at Neji.  
“The precious little time you have would be better spent seeing to her than glaring at me,” Neji told her. He didn’t look sorry that he’d nearly killed his own cousin. If anything, his face seemed to be gloating over it.   
“Medics!” the woman shouted, deciding to ignore him for now. “Hurry! What’s taking so long?!”  
“S-sorry!” one of the medical ninja apologized as they rushed over to Hinata. “Get her on the stretcher, one, two, three.” Naruto ran to her side. “It’s serious. She’s got about ten minutes at the most! Get her to the emergency room. Pronto!” They lifted the stretcher and bore the girl away. It shocked you that somebody could do something like that to a girl as sweet as Hinata, especially someone who knew her. She had always been a kind and quiet person. Neji had to be some sort of heartless bastard; that was the only explanation. You hoped he got his ass handed to him in the official matches of the Third Exam, where everyone he knew would see him fail. Your eyes flicked over to Naruto as he knelt down and drug his fingers through Hinata’s blood that pooled on the ground. Turning to face Neji, he held out his fist dripping with red.  
“I promise you, I’ll win no matter what!” After that, everyone returned to the balcony so someone could come in and clean all the blood off of the floor before the next match. Since you’d already had your match, you didn’t feel the need to put yourself out of your comfort zone standing near strangers, so you joined your teammates on the Leaf side of the arena.   
“So, what happened while I was gone?” you asked. Sakura gave you a quick recap of the battles that occurred while you were napping. She had been the next to be called up after you left, along with Ino, and their match ended in a draw with a double knock-out. Then it had been Tenten and the woman from Gaara’s team, with the Sand ninja coming out on top. After that, Shikamaru vs. some guy you didn’t know. You’d ended up missing Naruto’s match, too, which was against Inuzuka Kiba. Naruto managed to win that one, so there would be three of you entering the final round. The only other match you’d missed was the one you’d walked in on the end of. Half expecting Naruto to berate you for missing his battle with Kiba, you looked around only to find that he was standing alone far away from anyone else. That is, until he was approached by Kankuro. ‘Oh, so he’s up and moving again, huh?’ From the looks of it, he’d said something that got Naruto all fired up and excited again. The amused look dropped from his face when the boy addressed him directly. You wondered what you teammate had said to the cat head. A cough from Hayate caught your attention, along with everyone else’s.  
“We will now resume the battle,” the judge announced. You tuned everything else out and focused on the screen. Before the names had even stopped, sand filled the air, depositing Gaara onto the arena floor. ‘Damn, that’s cool,’ you thought. ‘I wish I could do something like that.’  
“Hurry up and get down here,” Gaara demanded impatiently.   
“Safe!” Choji shouted at the top of his lungs. He was immediately punished for the outburst by his teammates. He was safe, though, because the name that appeared with Gaara’s on the screen was Rock Lee. ‘Who’s that?’ you wondered. Some flailing in your peripheral vision drew your attention to Round Eyes, who was practicing kicks and bragging about jinxing himself into being next. ‘Oh, so that’s his name.’ Lee and his sensei were equally pumped about the upcoming match, both yelling and pointing dramatically at the horizon. They really were the same, after all.   
“Go, Lee!” Big Bowl Cut shouted as his apprentice jumped over the railing.  
“I am very happy to be squaring off with you so early in the match,” Lee greeted his opponent. Gaara said nothing in response. His face was even scarier than usual, and he was apparently impatient to start, throwing the cork of his gourd at Lee who caught it before letting it fall to the floor. “Please don’t be in such a hurry.” Sand began to float up out of the gourd. ‘He might be killed,’ you thought.  
“Now then… the ninth match… begin!” With Hayate’s approval, the battle was underway. Lee ran towards Gaara at full speed.  
“Leaf Hurricane!” He attempted to land a strong kick on the red haired Sand ninja, but it was blocked by a wall of sand. Gaara never shifted a single limb. A great wave of sand came over Lee’s head and crashed down, only just missing him as he jumped away. The sand withdrew into the gourd, only to burst forth once more to block another attack. Every attempt to land a hit on Gaara was blocked by sand that rose in a series of small shields, completely preventing any attempt to reach him. It seemed to defend and attack simultaneously as it swirled around the Leaf ninja. Lee was forced to leap away by a sudden onslaught of wave after wave of sand. It was amazing to watch. The fluidity and absoluteness of the sand as both a defense and an offense was both terrifying and beautiful. Watching the sand twist and curve before it cascaded down upon its target was exhilarating.   
“Even Lee-san’s fast strikes have no effect at all!” Sakura exclaimed.   
“Yeah, it’s magnificent, isn’t it?” you breathed. She gave you a sideways look that said she thought you were crazy.  
“More like monstrous,” she corrected. You only shrugged. It wasn’t your fault Sakura couldn’t appreciate such a seamless fighting style.  
“Is that it?” Gaara asked, still standing in the same spot he landed in when he came down from the balcony. He hadn’t moved an inch since the battle began, not even to uncross his arms. “Entertain me a bit more… there’s not enough yet. Blood!” The sand rushed forward even more quickly than before and you knew that Gaara had only been playing with Lee the entire time until now. The bowl cut ninja tried to jump to safety but the sand caught him by the ankle and swung him about before flinging him into a wall. While Lee was still recovering from the impact, another wave of sand rolled forth. He only just dodged it and the sand crashed into the wall where he’d been no more than a second earlier. Lee attempted another series of attacks on Gaara, but each one was blocked even when the redhead wasn’t looking.  
“Why is Lee-san only using Taijutsu?” Sakura asked. “He’ll never be able to get close enough for that!” It was true, of course. The sand was a perfect defense. “Why doesn’t he step back a bit and use Ninjutsu or something?”  
“It’s not that he doesn’t use it,” Big Bowl Cut answered her. “He can’t use it. Lee has almost no Ninjutsu or Genjutsu skills. When I first met Lee, he was completely inept. He had no talent whatsoever.” While this conversation was going on, Lee was still under the onslaught of Gaara’s sand. He did a series of back hand springs, narrowly dodging the bursts of sand that pursued him until his feet landed on a sheet of the stuff that had coated the floor behind him. Losing his footing, the boy fell to the ground. Before he had the chance to escape, a wall of sand rose before him and then plunged down. For a moment, it seemed that he’d been caught, but then you saw him in the air. He landed atop one of the fingers of the hand seal statue at the front of the room. “Certainly, a ninja who can’t do Ninjutsu or Genjutsu is a rarity,” Big Bowl Cut continued from where he’d left off. “That’s why the only path left open to Lee as a ninja was Taijutsu. But that’s precisely what makes him a winner!” It made sense, in a way. If one was left only one path, then that path could be taken wholeheartedly. It would produce a person who was extraordinary in one area, though they would be lacking in all others. The downside of that kind of strength was that it wasn’t always a given that your single fighting style would be useful in any situation. For example, this one. “Lee, take them off!” the sensei shouted.  
“But, Guy-sensei! You told me only to do that to protect a large group of very important people!” Well, now you had a name for Lee’s sensei other than ‘Big Bowl Cut’.  
“That’s quite alright!” Guy said, winking and putting one thumb up. “I give you permission!” Lee laughed and sat down to pull off the orange legwarmers he was wearing. Underneath were weights that had all sorts of writing on them. He removed them from his legs and stood up, holding them out at his sides.  
“Alright, now I can move easily!” he shouted. He let the weights drop to the ground. While they didn’t really look like much, when they finally landed on the concrete it was like an explosion. When he moved, it was like he disappeared. Gaara looked around frantically, but he was unable to see Lee until the Leaf ninja was right in front of him. Another round of attacks was started, but unlike the last time, it seemed that the sand was having difficulty keeping up with Lee’s sudden increase in speed. The kicks and punches were still blocked, but just barely. Each hit pushed through the sand that had been like a brick wall before. Rather than calmly standing still while allowing the sand to do the work, Gaara was now recoiling from every strike, panic clear on his face. Lee flew into the air in a somersault and put all the momentum of the spin into one high-speed kick that landed across the top of Gaara’s head.  
“Youth is… explosion!” Guy-sensei shouted. Both he and his pupil were very excitable people. Unlike the others who were celebrating, you, against all logic, were secretly hoping that the Sand ninja hadn’t been hurt. He was now putting his own effort into guiding the sand into blocking him, but Lee was still able to land a punch to his face that sent him sliding across the ground. After coming to a stop, he pulled himself back to his feet. The sand was pouring out of that gourd now, swirling around his feet. Although he was standing, Gaara kept his head down. Once you took a closer look, you could see that sand wasn’t only falling from the gourd, but falling from his face. A large chunk of solid sand fell and disintegrated when it hit the ground. Now you could see that there was a layer of it covering his entire body like armor. It had been invisible before since it took on the exact shape and color of his normal appearance, but now that it was damaged it could be seen clearly. The expression on his face under that mask was beyond insane. You could hear his breathing from all the way up on the balcony. Slowly, the sand that had poured out of the gourd gathered around him, hardened, and became invisible again until he looked just as impassive and impervious as before.   
“Is that all?” Gaara asked once he’d collected himself. The sand at his feet roiled with agitation. Lee looked to his other half, seeking approval for something. A nod from Guy-sensei said that whatever he’d been wondering about was allowed, and so the mini bowl cut began to unwrap the bandages around his arms. Then, he darted forward, running in a circle around his opponent. “Hurry up and bring it on,” Gaara demanded.  
“You asked for it!” was the reply. Lee dropped into a low kick, similar to what Sasuke used to defeat Yoroi. Gaara was sent into the air. Kick after kick aimed at his mid-section sent the Sand ninja higher and higher towards the ceiling. The sand surged forth beneath them, unable to catch up. For a moment, Lee faltered as the series of attacks sapped his strength. He pushed through, however, and the bandages around his arms wrapped around Gaara, binding him. The round eyed boy grabbed onto his opponent and turned the both of them so that their bodies were pointed straight down and began to spin. The effect was like a high speed drill that drove them into the ground and sent chunks of concrete flying. Lee jumped back from the point of impact, kneeling on one knee and trying to catch his breath. Gaara lay in the center, flat on his back, unmoving. Cracks had appeared all over his body, the way the sand armor mimicked his real appearance making it look like his actual skin was cracking.  
“He did it!” Sakura shouted in excitement. “Lee-san won!” Part of you wanted to yell at Gaara to ‘get up already, dammit!’ but you repressed that part. After all, he was supposed to be the enemy since he was fighting someone from your village. It made you wonder if there was something wrong with you. Why support a terrifying guy from some far off land over a nice guy from your own land? Then again, you had never been one for patriotism. Besides, if Gaara lost now, you wouldn’t be able to see him fight again in the official matches of the Third Exam. Sure, Lee’s Taijutsu was amazing, but Gaara’s sand was mesmerizing. Hayate approached the pit to see if the redhead was still alive, but before he got there, the boy’s face started to cave in. The body Lee slammed to the ground was a decoy. The fake Gaara crumbled more and more until it returned to being sand. Behind the horrified and exhausted ninja, a wall of sand rose and parted to reveal Gaara. He chuckled darkly. The sound of that laugh was the sound of certain death. The expression on his face was a promise that he would kill anyone who opposed him and enjoy it. His hands formed a seal and the sand that had been encasing him surged forth to crash brutally against Lee’s body. The Leaf ninja tried to stand after the sand pulled away, but his legs could no longer hold him. The sand rose behind Gaara like a tsunami. Again, it slammed into Lee, this time throwing him against a wall. Before he had time to move, he was struck once more by a violent torrent.  
“Wow,” you whispered. This amount of strength was beyond anything you’d ever seen.  
“Why doesn’t Lee-san dodge?” Sakura asked. “With his speed, he should easily be able to dodge that level of attack.” It was a wonder that you and Sakura were both watching the same battle. You’d noticed the moment Lee had pushed his body too far. That technique he used before was probably a ‘go big or go home’ move. He’d wasted his big attack on a decoy, and now his strength was gone.  
“It’s not that he doesn’t dodge, it’s that he can’t dodge,” Guy-sensei corrected her.   
“The Lotus is a double edged sword,” Kakashi explained. “Why do you think the Lotus is a forbidden technique? The Lotus isn’t Ninjutsu or Genjutsu. It’s a Taijutsu with that much high speed movement. The load it puts on a person’s body is beyond imagination. So Lee’s entire body is in so much pain right now that even moving is out of the question.” Despite that explanation, when the next onslaught of sand came, Lee was able to move out of the way before it hit. There was a limit to how much he could dodge, however, and eventually he was struck dead on. Even though blast after blast of sand raged against his already weakened body, the green clad ninja still managed to pull himself to his feet, but Gaara only laughed at his efforts.  
“Such meaningless actions…” the redhead mocked him. The next wave of sand to slam against Lee’s body looked like a clawed hand. Another of the same shape drove sharply into his back when he fell to the floor. Still, once the sand pulled away, he got to his feet again.  
“Stop, Lee-san!” Sakura pleaded. “If you keep going, you’ll die!” But it was beginning to look like he wouldn’t die after all. That confident look had returned to his overly round eyes, and when Gaara made another strike, he dodged it as quickly as he had been before. He began to easily dodge the sand’s barrage, cracks appearing in the concrete in his path as it missed him. You heard Sakura and Guy talking to each other, but you tuned it out. Right now, you wanted to focus on the battle in front of you. Lee continued to dodge more of Gaara’s attacks until eventually, he stopped. An air of concentration hung around him as he formed a hand seal. After a moment, energy began to visibly radiate from his body.  
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do…” Gaara said. “But this is the end for you.”  
“That’s true,” Lee agreed. “In any case… it will be the end with the next. There is no way that I alone can lose in a place like this!” With that statement, the energy around him increased exponentially. You had a feeling that if you’d listened to Guy and Sakura you’d have an explanation for this, but there wasn’t anything you could do about that now. Besides, you had a pretty good idea of what he was attempting. Judging by his sudden increase in speed and strength, he was probably turning off the limiters in his body. “Guy-sensei, please allow this. The time is now.” Lee stood up straight, his face looking like a demon and his hair blowing back from the force of his own energy. “The time to carry through and protect one’s own Way of the Ninja! The Third Gate of Life… open!” He shouted with effort for a while before continuing. “Also, the fourth gate, the Gate of Pain… open!” With the opening of that gate, veins began to appear on the surface of his skin. ‘How many gates will he open,’ you wondered. Four seemed to be enough for now as he dashed towards Gaara and delivered a kick to his jaw that sent him flying. The air displaced by the force of the impact buffeted everyone on the balcony and you all brought your arms up to shield yourselves from the bits of debris that were mixed in. Your eyes searched the cloud of dust in the center of the arena for any signs of Gaara. For a moment, there was nothing, but then he emerged from the top, still flying higher and higher after Lee’s kick. He gave a pained grunt as his sand armor cracked, and his sand surged upwards in an attempt to protect him. It wasn’t fast enough, however, because the uninhibited Leaf ninja attacked before it could even get near. Lee darted around, striking from all directions so that Gaara was suspended in the air by the onslaught. Pieces of the armor fell away as the redhead’s body was battered continuously. Still, he wasn’t injured. Lee noticed this and decided it was time to take his attack a step further. Just as he was about to kick his opponent, he shouted, “The Fifth Gate of Closing… open!” You were so immersed in the battle that you didn’t have time to appreciate the irony of him opening the gate of ‘closing’. Lee disappeared for a half second before reappearing to unleash a barrage of punches to Gaara’s abdomen. The Sand ninja was launched towards the floor with a sudden burst, but his descent was halted by Lee’s hold on the tie around his waist. His body was pulled back up like a yoyo into his opponent’s fist. “Hidden Lotus!” the Leaf ninja screamed. You weren’t able to keep up with what happened next, the movement was too fast and another blast of debris had you momentarily blinded. When you regained sight, you were able to see that Gaara’s gourd was dissolving into sand that protected him as he slammed into the ground. He slowly lifted a hand to reach towards Lee and a larger hand made of sand mimicked the movements of his own. The round eyed boy tried to crawl away but the physical drain of his attack had him mostly paralyzed. Sand crept up his leg and engulfed his arm.   
“Sand Coffin!” Gaara closed his fist and the sand contracted, crushing the limbs in its grasp. Lee appeared to be unconscious, but the sand attack didn’t stop. Instead, a larger wave of sand covered his body completely. “Die!” Gaara growled. Just when it seemed that Lee was about to do just that, Guy intercepted the attack and dispelled it. Something about that action caused the murderous ninja to have some sort of mental break, gasping in pain and pressing a hand to his head. “Why?” he asked. “Why… save him?”  
“He’s… He is… an important subordinate whom I care for!” Gaara stared at him for a moment before standing up and walking away, the sand around him reforming his gourd.  
“I quit.”  
“He quit?” Sakura whispered, confused.  
“The moment Guy jumped in, Lee lost,” Kakashi explained.  
“The winner… Ga-“ Hayate stopped and turned to look at the supposedly unconscious Lee, as did everyone else. He was on his feet again. Blood dripped from his fingertips and his legs shook, but he was standing. Gaara turned back around to face him.  
“Lee, it’s over!” Guy told him. “You’re in no condition to be standing.” He reached out to his student only to pull back in shock. “Lee… you… you are…” Tears fell from his eyes and he was unable to finish his sentence. “Even after having lost consciousness…” he managed to continue, “you still want to prove your own Way of the Ninja?” Guy pulled the unconscious boy into a hug. “You’re already a respectable ninja!” You decided to look somewhere else and give the two of them some privacy. This didn’t really have anything to do with you, after all, so you shouldn’t intrude.  
“The winner… Gaara,” Hayate announced now that Lee’s loss of consciousness was confirmed. Gaara was still looking at the two men. A sort of pained look crossed his face at the open display of affection.  
“Lee-san!” Sakura made to jump down and run to Lee, but she was stopped by Kakashi.  
“Sakura. Even if you went now, what could you do? Your words of encouragement would only make him feel worse,” your silver haired sensei advised her. Several medical ninja rushed into the arena and began to assess Lee’s condition.   
“Are you the Jounin in charge of this boy?” one of them asked Guy.  
“Yes,” he replied.  
“Please come with me.” The medic led Big Bowl Cut out of the room as his comrades moved the injured boy onto a cot. Once they carried him off to take him to the hospital, Gaara dissolved into a cloud of sand again to reform on the opposite balcony next to his female teammate. After seeing that battle, you were slightly dissuaded from your interest in the red haired boy. Now you had first-hand experience of what he would do instead of only feelings and ideas of what he might do. But, for whatever reason, it was only slightly. You had your doubts, sure, but in the end he was still someone worth watching.


	16. A Stranger's Promise

You were feeling emotionally exhausted, so you weren’t really sure how closely you would pay attention to the final match. It would be between Dosu and Choji since they were the only ones left. Neither of them were people you really wanted to watch, so you figured you might let your mind wander. Wonder where, though?   
“Then, the tenth and final round is next. Both contestants, come forward,” you heard Hayate announce. It looked like the effects of your nap had worn off completely, all of the tranquility blasted away by the previous match. Someone you knew was grievously injured by someone you had spent half the battle admiring. It was hard for you to develop emotional attachments to people, and that was probably part of it. If you thought about it, you’d actually had more interactions with Gaara than with Lee. Almost every time you saw the bowl cut ninja, he was either unconscious or talking to someone else.  
“And the winner is… Dosu Kinuta!” The announcement of the winner surprised you. You were almost positive that it’d been only two or so minutes since the start of the battle was declared. ‘It’s over already?’ It mustn’t have been worth watching, after all. “With this, the preliminaries for the Third Exam is completed.” The three proctors lined up in front of everyone with the Hokage standing about ten feet behind them.  
“To everyone who has advanced to the final round of the Third Exam of the Chuunin Exams,” Hayate addressed all of you, “there’s one person who’s missing, but congratulations.” All of the remaining contestants were on the ground floor while those who lost but weren’t seriously injured like Sakura or Kankuro watched from the balcony.  
“Well, I will begin the explanation of the final round,” the Hokage announced. “The final round is where you will show off your battle skills in front of everyone. I want you to satisfactorily demonstrate and show off your ability as representative battle forces of your respective lands. Accordingly, the final round will commence one month from now.” That was a relief. You’d have time to rest and recover before putting yourself on display for a bunch of foreign dignitaries.  
“We’re not going to do it here, right now?” Naruto asked.   
“This is so that there is a suitable period of preparation,” the Hokage explained. “Along with the announcement of the conclusion to each country’s Daimyo and Shinobi leaders, readying the summons for the final round requires preparation time – not to mention the time it takes for you examinees to prepare. In other words, to know your adversary in order to prepare yourself, time is necessary. Time to analyze what you learned about the adversaries in the preliminaries and time to take stock of your successes. The battles until now were like actual battles – it presupposed situations in which you can’t know your adversary. However, this is not the case in the final round. Some of you might have already revealed everything in front of your rivals. In the spirit of fairness and equality, you will have a month to train yourself to further your skills. Now that that’s done, I would like to let you take your leave, but first, for the final round, there is one more important matter to take care of.”  
“Let’s get on with it so we can get to training!” Naruto complained. You couldn’t help but agree with him. Long speeches weren’t something a person should have to put up with on a daily basis. Like you’d said earlier, you wished people would just get to the point.  
“Now, now,” the Hokage soothed him. “I want you all to calmly take one slip of paper from the box that Anko is holding.”  
“I’m going to go around in order, take only one,” Anko instructed. She took the box around the group and everyone took a piece of paper. When you unfolded your paper, you saw the number ‘three’ printed in the center.  
“Alright, you all have numbers now.” This time the person who spoke was Ibiki from the First Exam. “Then, from left to right, tell me the number on your slip of paper.”  
“Eight,” said Dosu.  
“I’m one,” Naruto answered.  
“Five,” you yawned.  
“Seven,” the female ninja from Gaara’s team stated.  
“Three,” Gaara replied.  
“Nine,” Shikamaru said.  
“Two,” that jerk Neji announced.  
“Roku,” said Shino. That made Sasuke number four.  
“In other words, he has number four,” Ibiki said as he scribbled on his clipboard.  
“Very well,” the Hokage started up again. “I will tell you about how the final round tournament will work.” There was some general surprise from the contestants.  
“Is that what drawing the lot was for?” Shikamaru asked.  
“Obviously,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “What else would it be for? Entering in a lottery to win a hot spring trip?” It boggled your mind how little people actually thought about the situation they were in.  
“Ibiki, bring forth the pairings,” the Hokage requested.  
“Yes sir,” he responded, then flipped his clipboard around so you could see it. You found your number five, which was paired up with six. ‘That means…’ you slowly, regretfully, turned to look at the person you would have to fight in the final round. ‘I’ll be up against Shino.’ That was one of the worst outcomes, outside of being paired against Gaara. Bugs didn’t bother you since you spent a lot of time in the forest, but Shino would be a very difficult person to best. This month would require much reflection on what you knew of him, which was next to nothing. Stalking him would be hard, too, since he could always have bugs keeping a lookout for anybody, and he’d know who it was that would be looking to know about him. That ruled out the friendly approach. Out of curiosity, you found Gaara’s number on the paper. He was paired up with Sasuke. ‘Well, that condenses the two matches I’m most interested in, at least,’ you thought, trying to look on the bright side. It was a small bright side. The dark side was that the person you cared about might be brutally maimed. He also might brutally maim the person you were interested in. Either way, it didn’t look like there could be a good outcome.  
“Could I ask a question?” Shikamaru raised his hand. The Hokage nodded to say it was okay. “Does this mean that there will be only one winner of the tournament? That only one of us will be able to become a Chuunin?” That was a good question.  
“No, on the contrary,” the Hokage responded. “The judges of the final round, of which I am one, will be made up of the Kazekage, the Daimyo from various countries who will assign you your missions, and the Shinobi leaders. Through this tournament, these judges will be able to make a thorough evaluation, and come to a decision as to whether each one of you possesses the qualities incumbent of a Chuunin. Even if someone loses the first round, they can still become a Chuunin.”  
“So there’s a chance that all of us will become Chuunin?” the girl from Gaara’s team asked.  
“Correct, but conversely, there’s also a chance that none of you will. To advance in the tournament, means maximizing chances to appeal yourselves to the judges. Understood, Shikamaru-kun?” The laid back ninja didn’t seem to care that he’d been called out directly by the Hokage. He was the type of guy to think the whole setup was too much trouble. “Thank you for your patience. We will adjourn until next month.” Finally, you could stop being inside.

You had tried to stop by the hospital to visit Sasuke before making your long awaited journey to your tree, but the nurses had turned you away saying that he wasn’t allowed visitors. Because of that, what should have been an enjoyable and relaxing reunion with the branches of your old friend had become unsatisfying. Reunions with trees were great, but right now the reunion you wanted was with someone you were worried about. Normally when a hospital wouldn’t allow visitors, it meant there was some sort of problem with the patient, that the person wasn’t in a condition to handle seeing anyone. It would be nice if you could just find and kill that Yoroi guy. It would be better to find and kill Orochimaru, but that was just wishful thinking. What was that guy’s problem, though? Evil people just had to have agendas, didn’t they? It would have been nice if the villain could have been a lazy guy who just thought really mean things but never actually got around to acting on them. That was wishful thinking, too.

It had been a few days since the preliminaries ended, and you were ready to start training for the final round. The first thought that came to you was to seek out Kakashi and ask him for advice, but the silver haired Jounin was nowhere to be found. When you asked Iruka if he’d seen your sensei, he’d told you that a message had been left for you to wait in front of the face monument at noon exactly one week after the conclusion of the primaries. That day was today. Kakashi knew you well, scheduling the meeting to include a period of isolation from humanity after that week long ordeal. Rather than the man you were expecting, when you reached the meeting point, you found a woman with short red hair and the kind of figure that you couldn’t hide under a potato sack. She was dressed in a deep purple kimono with gold dragons snaking up each sleeve. What’s more, she was pouring sake into a bright red Sakazuki cup. ‘Aren’t those normally for special occasions?’ You could have been wrong, but even if you weren’t it wasn’t stopping the woman from using it now.  
“I see you received my invitation,” she commented when you approached. “Have a seat.” You silently complied. This was an intriguing person. Once you were seated in front of her, the woman offered you a drink from her cup.  
“Aren’t I too young to drink something like that?” you asked. She smiled and held the cup out further.  
“This is a special circumstance. From here on, your training will be in my hands, and so will your life. We will drink from this cup to prove our commitment, and when we are done you will keep it. This will remind you of the promise we will make to each other.” It almost sounded like a wedding.  
“Wait, what promise?” you asked. You weren’t sure you were ready to make any commitments to some woman you’d just met without even knowing what they were.  
“I will be promising to oversee your training and to give you my knowledge and protection. You will promise to follow my instructions and to trust your life to me. Kakashi told me about you, ______. There is a great potential within you. If you wish to unlock it, if you wish to protect the people you care about, then believe in me.” Your mind brought up an image of Sasuke under attack by Orochimaru while you lacked the power to save him. Straightening you back and placing your hands on your knees, you nodded with a serious expression.  
“I accept.” The long sleeves of her kimono slipped down to her elbows as she lifted the cup to her lips and you were able to see that the dragons on the sleeves were mirrored by identical black tattoos on her caramel colored skin. When she was done, she handed the cup to you and you drank the rest, holding back a wince as the sake burned your throat.  
“From here on out, it will be straight to business,” the woman announced. “After introductions, of course,” she added with a grin. “My name is Hayashi Matsuko, a specialist in assassination techniques.”


	17. A Training Montage and a Conflict

Ever since you began your training with Matsuko, you hadn’t seen any of your fellow squad members. As soon as you agreed to trust her, she led you deep into the forest. The two of you travelled for almost a day without stopping. When you finally did stop, it was at a place where three large waterfalls poured into a deep pond. The pond fed into a river on the opposite side and the river wound out of sight through the forest. Behind the waterfalls, there was a cave. The stone floor of the cave was damp with mist, but it became dry as you moved further back.  
“We’ll be sleeping here for the next month until the exams resume,” the red haired woman announced. “Until that time, you will have to survive out here, far away from any village. You will be responsible for your own meals, so don’t expect me to share any food with you if you can’t find anything to eat. I will wake you up at dawn every day, and you will have one hour to find your breakfast. After that hour is up, we will begin training whether you’ve eaten yet or not. We will train for four hours and then you will have an hour for lunch. After lunch, we will train for four more hours until dinner. After dinner, we will train for four more hours, and then we will go to sleep. There will be no breaks other than for meals or to sleep for the night. Do you understand?” You nodded sharply.  
“Yes, Matsuko-sensei!” This training would be hard, but it would be worth it. Not only was it training for the exams, it was training for your future life as a hermit. Perhaps this would be the place you retired to. If you became familiar with the lay of the land now, it would be a head start on your dream.  
“Good,” Matsuko said. “It’s about time for dinner now, so go find something to eat. I’ll do the same and we’ll meet back here in an hour.” With that, she disappeared. The most obvious option for dinner was to fish the river. Unfortunately, you didn’t have Naruto to hit the fish out of the water for you, so you’d have to do that yourself. Since the only other person in the area was also female, you stripped down to your underwear so you didn’t get the rest of your clothes wet, but kept your weapons holster on your hip. After walking down the river bank for a while, you found a place where you could see some fish swimming around. You moved downstream of them you they wouldn’t be alerted to your presence and walked into the river until the water was up to your waist. Then, you waited for one to come close enough and swatted it into the air. Before it could fall back into the water, you skewered it to a tree with a kunai, just like you’d done in the Forest of Death. For good measure, you caught three more fish. You would only eat one now, and dry the rest so you could save them in case there was a time when you weren’t able to catch anything. Back near the waterfalls, once you were dressed again, you started a fire and cooked all four fish. First, you quickly ate one of the fish then, when you were done, you filleted the rest and hung them in a sunny place, high enough from the ground that animals wouldn’t be able to get to them. It wasn’t long after you finished this that Matsuko returned and you began your first round of training.  
“Welcome back,” you greeted her. You were feeling more energetic than usual. Not being under a roof for such a long period of time was having a great effect on your mood.  
“I see you’ve been thinking ahead,” she commented, looking at your line of drying fish. “That’s good. You need to be prepared out here.” Without any warning, the redheaded woman lunged forward to attack you. Hunger wasn’t the only thing you needed to be prepared for. You quickly grabbed your sai and blocked the kunai in her left hand. Her right hand wasn’t far behind with another kunai and she nicked your cheek with the point as you leaned backwards to dodge it. “Not fast enough,” she snapped. This side of her was highly focused and serious. It was clear that she wouldn’t be cutting you any slack, especially by the end of the four hours when you were covered in shallow cuts and bruises. Considering how she’d been in training, you expected her to yell at you and ask you why you were so pathetic. Instead, she patted you on the head and grinned. “Good job,” she said. “You did better than I expected.”  
“Thank you,” you replied.

The next month continued in much the same way. Matsuko would put the fear of heaven in you during training and then compliment you on your performance afterwards. It was like she had two different personalities. The morning training sessions consisted of her hunting you and you trying to avoid being caught. After lunch, your positions were reversed. In the evenings, you sparred one on one. All of this resulted in marked improvements in both your stealth and your hand-to-hand combat skills. Every third day, you paused the normal schedule for Ninjutsu and Genjutsu training, with Ninjutsu in the morning and afternoon, and Genjutsu in the evening. None of what you learned was flashy or eye-catching. Considering that your teacher was a specialist in assassination, something that would catch people’s attention would be counter-productive. Instead, you learned techniques to go unnoticed by others around you. Genjutsu came particularly naturally to you. Your ability to read people made it easier for you to deceive them. The Genjutsu Matsuko decided to teach you was Happa Odoroki no Jutsu – the leaf surprise Jutsu. To anyone caught in it, you appeared to be just another of the many leaves scattered across the forest floor. Of course, once you attacked, the pain would pull them out of the illusion, but by then you’d have them incapacitated. Your sensei had said that you should learn it because it matched your personal fighting style. The Ninjutsu Matsuko made you practice the most was Kuchiyose no Jutsu, or Summoning Jutsu. The animal you summoned was a bat named Hansuke. That was convenient for you, since you would have to fight Shino in the final round. You’d like to see him and his insects get the jump on you when you had an insectivorous bat on your side.  
“Today is the last day of your training,” Matsuko announced. You were a bit surprised. The truth was, you hadn’t been keeping track of how long you’d been out here.  
“Already?” you asked. The fiery assassin chuckled and patted you on the head.  
“Yes, already,” she confirmed. “Today will be different from all the other days up until now. We will be returning to Konoha today, but we will stop once every two hours for a 15 minute sparring session.”  
“I thought we weren’t returning until tomorrow,” you said, confused. Matsuko sighed.  
“That had been my original plan, but then I realized that you’d need some time to rest before jumping right into the final round. Obviously I wasn’t going to cut out a whole day of training, so we’re training on the go.” Without giving you even a second to collect yourself, Matsuko dashed off in the direction of Konoha. You immediately followed suit and were able to locate her within a minute or two. When she noticed you’d caught up with her, she suddenly switched directions and disappeared again. It looked like the sparring sessions every two hours weren’t the only practice you’d be getting.

 

By the time you finally made it back to Konoha, you were completely exhausted. Just like when you left, you didn’t stop once to take a break. The only stops were for the sparring sessions. When you were in sight of the village, Matsuko had patted you on the head, told you to rest up, and disappeared. As much as resting sounded absolutely wonderful, you decided that you would drop by the hospital first to see if Sasuke was still there. If he was, he should at least have been in good enough condition to receive a visitor or two. Upon entering the hospital, you catch sight of a head of pink hair.  
“Hey, Sakura!” you greeted her. “Long time no see.” Sakura spun around and rushed up to you. You backed up a little bit when she got too close.  
“______!” she practically shouted into your face. “Where have you been all this time?” You grinned and scratched the back of your head.  
“Oh, you know me,” you said. “I’ve been in the forest for about a month now. I just got back today.” Sakura rolled her eyes at you.  
“Honestly, _______, I don’t know how you do things like that.” You didn’t know how she did what she did, either. “But, _______,” Sakura looked around the room before continuing, “isn’t it weird how nobody’s here?” Now that she mentioned it, the waiting room was weirdly empty. There wasn’t even anybody at the desk. Sakura walked over to the front desk. “Out to lunch?” she read the sign on the wooden surface. “Oh well.” Grabbing the sign in sheet, she wrote her name down and passed it to you. “It shouldn’t matter if we just go in, right?” You shrugged and followed her example. It was the receptionist’s fault for not being there if you went in without seeing anybody.  
“Is that for Sasuke?” you asked upon seeing the white lily that Sakura had brought with her. She shook her head.  
“No, Sasuke is out of the hospital already,” she told you. “This is for Lee.” You sighed. So Sasuke wasn’t here anymore. That was a good thing, of course, but you’d wanted to see him before you collapsed onto your face and slept for twenty hours. “Do you think you could come with me?” Sakura asked.  
“Sure,” you replied. You’d already come to the hospital, after all. You might as well visit someone while you were at it. The sound of footsteps caught your attention and a chill ran down your spine. When you turned to see who it was, however, the room was just as empty as it had been when you arrived. “Weird…” you muttered. The creepy atmosphere remained as you and Sakura walked down the hall towards Lee’s room. You saw that there was a slightly brown lily at his bedside in a slender vase once you entered the hospital room. Apparently Sakura had been doing this for a while.  
“Wait here,” Sakura told you. “I’m going to change the water and put the new flower in.” You nodded and she left the room. It wasn’t long before it occurred to you that you had to go to the bathroom. As you walked down the hallway, you noted that the strange atmosphere hadn’t changed at all. Even on your way back to Lee’s room, it felt like something was off. When you returned, Sakura was arranging the new flower on the night stand.  
“Sorry I was gone,” you apologized.  
“That’s fine,” she said. “Anyway, Naruto’s here, too, so let’s we should see him.”  
“What, he’s here, too?” you asked. “How much happened while I was gone?” Sakura giggled a little.  
“Not much,” she replied. “He just wiped himself out training.” That was pretty typical of Naruto, you supposed. The two of you began walking towards Naruto’s room, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was definitely off.  
“Sakura, you go ahead,” you told her. “There’s something I need to check out.” Sakura gave you a confused look, but she didn’t argue. As soon as you parted ways, you head back towards Lee’s room. Somehow, you knew that whatever was happening here would probably be in that room. You were outside the door when you heard someone speak.  
“I’ll say it again…” That was Gaara’s voice. You realized that it was probably his footsteps you’d heard in the waiting room. His presence would definitely explain the feeling of danger in the building. “If you get in my way… I’ll kill you.” Against your better judgement, you opened the door and stepped into the room. Everyone in the room besides the unconscious Lee – Naruto, Shikamaru, and Gaara – turned to look at you.  
“_______, you should go,” Shikamaru warned you. He had Gaara trapped in his Shadow Possession Jutsu. You took a quick inventory of the room and saw that there was sand all over Lee’s bed. Gaara must have come to kill him after being stopped from doing so in the match.  
“Wait, Shikamaru!” Naruto exclaimed. “If ______ is here, won’t she be able to help us?” Gaara didn’t say anything, but you noticed the way his eyes widened slightly when he saw you before they returned to the dangerous slits they’d been previously.  
“Well this is a compromising position,” you commented. “Gaara,” you addressed the sand ninja, “it’s really not necessary to kill this guy, right?” The redhead’s non-eyebrows drew together.  
“Necessary doesn’t matter,” he replied. “I just want to do it.” It was hard to argue with that kind of reasoning. Not that you couldn’t think of any arguments, you just knew that none of them would matter to Gaara.  
“There’s no way in hell I’ll let you do that!” Naruto shouted, pointing an angry finger at Gaara. Shikamaru immediately tried to calm him down.  
“I’ve been telling you to back off, haven’t I?” he scolded the blond. “This guy has the strength of a monster. You get it, don’t you?” Naruto lowered his finger, but he didn’t look any less ready to hit the sand ninja.  
“I’ve got a real monster inside of me,” he said. “I’m not going to lose to this guy!” You remembered that time in the Forest of Death when Naruto had seemed like a completely different person. He’d stopped that giant snake with his bare hands. It was definitely possible that he might be able to take Gaara on if he had the aid of that power.  
“What’s worth making him mad, you idiot?” Shikamaru asked, elbowing Naruto.  
“A monster… huh?” Gaara whispered. He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly. “Me too, actually.” The redhead opened his eyes again and looked up. “It’s just like you said. I had a terrible upbringing. When I came into this world, I took the life of the woman some might call my mother. So that I could become the strongest shinobi my father brought his Ninjutsu upon me, and so I became possessed by a sand spirit. I was born a monster.” Shikamaru gasped. You frowned slightly. For a father to do such a thing to his own child… “It’s called Shukaku, the living wraith of an old monk from Sunagakure who was sealed inside a tea cauldron.” You must have been really stupid, because you just wanted to hug Gaara right now. Luckily for you, you had the smallest shred of sanity that kept you from following that thought.  
“It must be a type of demon possession jutsu, performed to a baby before it is born,” Shikamaru said, clearly disturbed by his revelation. Of course, you were disturbed as well. What kind of egomaniacal bastard was Gaara’s father to do something like that to a baby? “To go that far… they must have been totally nuts.” It was quiet for a while before Shikamaru scoffed. “Heh, what a thing for a parent to be doing! Such a twisted kind of love.” Now you wanted to smack him upside the back of his head. That kind of thing wasn’t something to joke about.  
“It’s not love,” you corrected him. “It’s self-serving bullshit.”  
“Love?” Gaara asked. “Don’t measure me by your standards. Family, huh… Let me tell you what kind of ties I have to my family. They’re ties of hatred, ties of murderous intent… My family’s just lumps of flesh. Nourished with the life of my mother, I was crafted as the ultimate masterpiece of the village… The Kazekage’s child. I was taught by my father the innermost secrets of the Shinobi… spoiled, over-protected, and left on my own. And I thought that was love… Until that incident happened.” You could sense Shikamaru gearing up to be demanding, so you cut in before he could speak.  
“What incident?” you asked in a calm voice. Gaara’s eyes shifted to your face, but he didn’t speak. He seemed to be reflecting on something while also gauging your reaction to what he’d told you so far.  
“What incident?” Naruto demanded. When Gaara still didn’t speak, he repeated himself.  
“Naruto…” you spoke his name warningly. This was a delicate situation, and it wouldn’t be good to set the redhead off right now. He had his sand all over Lee, and was already in a fragile state as it was. A twisted grin grew on Gaara’s face and his expression shifted into something that could only be described as far past insanity.  
“In the six years since the time when I was six years old my real father has tried to assassinate me more times than I can count!” He looked like he was about to snap. Or maybe he already had, a long time ago.  
“I thought you just said that your father spoiled you… What’s going on here?” Gaara smiled slightly.  
“Those who are too strong are apt to become feared,” he explained. “Born through the jutsu, my mind was unstable. I guess the idiots in my village finally realized that I had emotional problems. For my father, Kazekage, at the same time I was the ultimate weapon for the village, I was also a dangerous, fearsome presence. It seems I was labeled as a dangerous figure as soon as I turned six. And I was treated politely simply because I was feared. To them, now I’m just a relic of the past that they’d like to see disappear. So what did I have in this life? Why did I keep on living? When I asked myself that, I couldn’t find the answer. But, as long as you’re alive, you need a reason. If you don’t have one, it’s just the same as being dead.” You couldn’t help feeling bad for Gaara. The adults in his life had seriously failed him. Whether it was too late to turn back now was hard to say. Most people would say that Gaara was past the point of no return, that he was too far gone and could never change. As for you, something like that was hard to believe.  
“What’s this guy saying?” Shikamaru asked nobody in particular. Naruto, who stood beside him, looked horrified. You knew he was thinking something along the lines of Gaara being the same as him. Both of them had been feared since the time they were born, after all.  
“So this is the answer I came to,” Gaara continued. “I am living in order to kill human beings other than myself. After living in fear of never knowing when I might be murdered, finally I became calm. By killing assassins, I finally comprehended the reason why I live. I live fighting for only myself and loving myself and if I see that all other people in this world exist only to make me realize that, there could be no world more wonderful. And as long as there are others to kill who can make me feel this happiness to be alive, I will never disappear.” There was a long moment of silence. Then, Naruto took a step backwards, shaking.  
“What’s wrong, Naruto?” Shikamaru asked him. While the two of them weren’t looking, sand began to pour out of Gaara’s gourd. It rose behind him in deadly tendrils, despite him being under the Shadow Possession Jutsu. Even now, when your life was in eminent danger, you couldn’t help but think his technique was beautiful.  
“It’s unfair to be killed by something so amazing, isn’t it?” you spoke into the air, not really expecting any kind of reply. “I wonder if it’s this beautiful from the inside…” Every person in the room looked at you with some measure of confusion. Gaara’s was only slight, but Naruto and Shikamaru looked as if they thought you’d gone off the deep end.  
“What are you talking about, ______?” Shikamaru demanded. “Have you lost your mind? We could die here, and you’re complimenting the person who wants to kill us!” He was right, of course. Now really wasn’t the time to be admiring anything. Naruto didn’t speak, which surprised you. He was usually the most vocal person in any room. You glanced in his direction and saw that he was completely frozen in terror. Two of the tendrils of sand rose into the air like a pair of cobras about to strike. “Naruto!” Shikamaru shouted.  
“Now, let me feel it,” Gaara said, his voice dripping with insanity. The sharp points drove towards Naruto and Shikamaru, but strangely, nothing came your way. Before anybody was injured, another person entered the room.  
“Stop right there!” Guy commanded. “Tomorrow’s the final round! There’s no need to rush like this!” You never thought you’d be so relieved to see the Big Bowl Cut. “Or do you just want to stay here starting today?” Suddenly, Gaara bent over clutching his head as his sand withdrew into the gourd. You took a small step forward.  
“Are you alright?” you asked quietly. One hand lowered from his head and he gave everyone in the room an angry, exhausted look. Without answering you, he slowly walked out of the room with his back hunched over and his feet scraping the ground. When he reached the doorway, he put one hand out to steady himself while the other still held his head like he was in pain. He looked over his shoulder at everyone.  
“I will… kill you all without fail,” he promised in a whisper. “Just wait.” His eyes briefly met yours and narrowed at your concerned expression. He looked like he was about to say something to you, but then he turned around and walked away.


	18. The Final Exams and Sleeves Full of Tricks

After everything that happened, you were barely in the bed before you lost consciousness. When you woke up in the morning, it felt like you’d just blinked. That was why you hated dreamless sleeping. It felt so short. Looking at the clock, you realized that you only had an hour to get to the arena for the final round. You jumped out of bed only to trip over the covers and fall to the floor. On the bright side, you were completely awake now. Once you were fully dressed, you grabbed one of the single serve cartons of almond milk you kept in the fridge in case you didn’t have time to eat and shoved the straw through the top. In less than a minute, you’d drained it and thrown the empty carton away. “Alright, let’s go fight some people and hope I don’t die!” It wasn’t the most inspirational pep talk, but it would have to do.  
The streets were crowded on the way to the arena. Everyone was out and about today, all excited to watch the final round of the Exams. When you finally reached the arena, you were surprised to see that there were still two people that hadn’t shown up yet. At least you weren’t the last one. As you stepped into the lineup, you realized you were the only one from your team to show up so far since Sasuke and Naruto were the two who weren’t anywhere in sight. A loud noise from the entrance caught your attention and you turned to see Naruto sliding across the ground towards the group. Leave it to that guy to make a weird entrance at the last minute. Shikamaru picked him up off of the ground and he came to, pushing away from the pineapple and looking around frantically.  
“Everyone run!” Naruto shouted. “A large herd of stampeding bulls is coming this way!”  
“Huh? What are you talking about?” Shikamaru asked.  
“I’m serious!” the orange clad ninja insisted. “So many of them…” he stopped when he realized everyone was staring at him.  
“Honestly, Naruto…” you sighed, turning back to face the crowd.  
“Where’s Sasuke?” Naruto asked, looking around.  
“That Dosu guy I’m supposed to fight isn’t here either,” Shikamaru said.  
“Hey, you guys, don’t be restless,” a Jounin scolded the two of them. “Throw out your chests and show your faces to the spectators!” For the first time since he arrived, Naruto noticed that there were actually people watching his every move from the stands above the walls of the arena. It should have been obvious, but he was Naruto after all. “You guys are the stars of the final round,” the Jounin told the group. Your eyes scanned the stands and found where the Hokage was sitting, right in the center. Another man wearing a blue version of his outfit approached him and you realized that that was the Kazekage. A chill went down your spine and you looked to your left, where Gaara stood. His face was contorted with rage and his whole body was coiled up, ready to strike at any moment. You thought back to what you’d heard yesterday about Gaara’s childhood. So that was the man who would do such a thing to his own son…  
“Bastard…” you muttered under your breath without thinking. Shikamaru and Naruto gave you questioning looks, but you just shook your head. The Hokage was standing up and walking to the balcony, so the final round was about to begin.  
“Everyone, thank you very much for coming to the Konohagakure Chuunin Exam,” the Hokage addressed the people in the arena. “We will now begin the final round matches for the eight who made it through the preliminaries! Please watch until the end!” The crowd cheered and the Jounin that was on the field turned to face the group of competitors.  
“I have something to tell you before the match,” he told you, reaching into his vest and pulling out a sheet of paper with a bracket on it. “Look at this. There was a slight change to the tournament. Check who you’ll be facing one more time.” You scanned the bracket and saw that Dosu’s name wasn’t there. He must have dropped out.  
“Hey, hey!” Naruto raised his hand to get the Jounin’s attention. “Sasuke still hasn’t come yet. What’ll happen?” You were worried about Sasuke as well. Sakura had said that he wasn’t in the hospital anymore, but you were starting to think there was something she hadn’t told you. If he had checked out under normal circumstances, he would be here right now.  
“In the case a competitor does not arrive by the start time of his own match, he or she will lose by default,” the Jounin replied. “Listen up you guys. The terrain is different, but the rule is that there are no rules, the same as in the preliminaries. The matches will continue until one or the other dies or acknowledges defeat. However, if I judge that it has been decided, I will stop the match there. Arguments will not be allowed. Understood? So the first match is… Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Neji. Just those two of you remain and the rest of you go to the waiting room.” Everyone besides the two who would be fighting began to walk towards the waiting room. You looked back over your shoulder at Naruto as you left. Hopefully he would pound that green onion into the ground. Someone should also hit you for making that pun. The waiting room turned out to be a balcony area similar to the one at the preliminaries. Everyone who wasn’t fighting in the match watched while leaning on the railing. Another thing that was the same as the preliminaries was the way Gaara seemed to be greatly anticipating the opportunity to fight someone. Now you knew why that was. Wind blasted the stadium for some reason or another, such as Naruto’s fighting spirit perhaps.  
“Let’s get started!” Naruto said.  
“Now then, round one,” the judge announced. “Begin!”  
There was a very long period of time during which neither combatant moved a muscle. They just stood there and stared each other down. After almost a minute, Neji’s foot shifted forward about two inches and then everything was still again. Ten seconds later, she shifted forward again and then went still. You saw Naruto twitch before he released two kunai which flew towards Neji only for one to be knocked away while the other was caught in the circle of his own kunai’s handle. Naruto took what he saw as an opportunity to rush towards his opponent while he was supposedly distracted. Like an idiot, he attacked Neji from the front with a right hook which was easily deflected. The momentum caused him to fall, but he caught himself with a flip and dove right back in with another front punch that was dodged by Neji. He followed it up with a series of quick jabs, all of which were blocked. It looked like a game of patty-cake. Because Naruto refused to stop attacking so directly, Neji was able to quickly land a hit on one of his chakra points.  
“You must be realizing that you have no way to win,” Neji taunted Naruto. The blond scoffed and grinned.  
“Everything I just did was to verify your power!” he corrects his opponent. “The real fight is just getting started! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” There were now five Narutos on the field. That was a smart move on his part, since Neji wouldn’t be able to find the real one if chakra was evenly distributed between all of them. It was looking like Naruto would have a good chance after all.

The fight between Neji and Naruto was long. It was very long, something like three or four episodes long. There was a moment towards the middle when everyone thought it was over; Neji had used his sixty four palms technique on Naruto and hit every chakra point on his body. Under normal circumstances, the person on the receiving end of that attack would be unable to stand. The judge had even called the match to an end. But Naruto manage to miraculously push himself to his feet much to the shock and irritation of his opponent. That event was immediately followed by an impromptu intersession in which Neji related his life story. Of course, after hearing that you couldn’t hate him as much as you had previously. Honestly you were starting to think that powerful families existed to cause irreparable damage to children. First the Kazekage put the Shukaku inside of Gaara, then Neji’s family basically branded him as a slave and then killed his father. Neji, being Neji, ended the story by attempting a finishing blow and then derisively calling Naruto a failure as he walked away. But Naruto just got up again and kept on fighting. Now you were watching as Naruto forced his chakra points open with that strange orange chakra that kicked in when he was in a tight spot. This was the monster inside of him that he told Gaara about yesterday. You glanced in Gaara’s direction and saw that he was watching Naruto very intently. He must have recognized that power as being similar to his own. Down in the arena, rocks were floating into the air as Naruto built his power up more and more.  
“Here I go!” Naruto announced. The visible orange chakra twisted about in the air before receding into Naruto’s body, then became visible again. It looked like he was on fire. The blond moved a great deal faster than he had been before, to the point that when he did move it was like he’d disappeared. “You’re confident in close combat, right?” he asked the onion before charging at him. The ground broke beneath his feet as he ran. “I don’t know anything about the Hyuuga destiny of hatred, but if you’re going to say it’s futile, you don’t have to do anything! After I become the Hokage…” Naruto’s and Neji’s chakra collided with their kunai in a bright burst of light. “I’ll change the Hyuuga!” That declaration was followed by an explosion which sent rocks flying and created a giant cloud of dust that obscured the arena. When the dust cleared out, nothing could be seen in the arena but two holes that were shaped like coffins. Hopefully their shape was just a coincidence and didn’t have any deeper meaning. A hand burst forth from one of the holes and Neji climbed out of it, coughing and covered in dirt. He stumbled over to the other hole and stood over it. His breathing was heavy and his Byakugan had disappeared.  
“Failure boy,” Neji scoffed. “This is the reality.” Now you were irritated. Seriously, what did it take to impress this guy? Naruto had exploded with chakra even after his chakra points had been hit and he’d put Neji in a hole in the ground. Even if the explosion knocked him out, you thought that was plenty enough to earn him the courtesy of not being called a failure. If Naruto didn’t climb out of that hole and kick his ass, you might end up doing it yourself. You wouldn’t have to, however, because a fist exploded from the ground and punched Neji in the face. That fist was attached to a not at all unconscious Naruto. Since the unconscious Naruto was still lying in the hole, you realized that he’d used his Shadow Clone to trick Neji, who was sprawled out on his back and unable to move. “In those conditions, you used the Shadow Clone just like that… the Ninjutsu that you’re good at, huh? I was careless…”  
“I’ve failed the graduation exam three times,” Naruto said. “As luck would have it, the Ninjutsu tests that appeared on the graduation exam were always infallibly the Ninjutsu I stunk at. Clone Jutsu… was the Ninjutsu I stunk at. Don’t be whining about boring stuff like destiny and whatnot, and how it can’t be changed! Because unlike me, you’re not a failure.” When Naruto finished speaking, the judge raised his hand and called the match.  
“The winner of this match is Uzumaki Naruto,” he announced. Everyone cheered, including you. That Neji needed a good lesson and it turned out that Naruto was the perfect teacher to give it to him. The blond was running around the arena blowing kisses, which made you laugh. He had a lot of personality that was for sure.  
“He won,” Shikamaru said. “Is it for real? I thought he was the same as me, in the not going anywhere class.” You patted him on the back.  
“Yeah, so you’d better win your match or he’ll never leave you alone,” you told him.  
“Now people are squealing. It looks like he’s part of that group that’s going somewhere.” Shikamaru sighed. “This is really bad. It kinda depresses me.” While Naruto was still running around, two medical ninja came out with a stretcher and carried Neji away. Eventually, Naruto joined the rest of you in the waiting room and the excitement of his match was replaced by anticipation for the next match, which was supposed to be between Sasuke and Gaara. The longer it was before the match started, the more agitated people became. They began to shout for the next match to start, but that was difficult to do when one of the competitors was absent. Where in the world was Sasuke, anyway? You hadn’t seen him since the preliminary round a month ago. He wasn’t the type to miss his match, so something must have happened to him. There was a possibility that Orochimaru had already captured him, and that terrified you. You could still remember the taste of the fear you’d felt when looking into his eyes, and the despair at knowing you weren’t able to protect someone who was important to you. The other people in the waiting room were saying something, but you didn’t hear them over your own worrying.  
“Everyone!” the judge’s voice cut through your thoughts and brought you back to the real world. “The candidate for the next battle has not arrived here! We’ll briefly postpone this battle and start the following battle ahead of it.” You sighed in relief. At least he wasn’t disqualified yet, so he had a chance to show up.  
“Hey!” Shikamaru exclaimed. “That means my match is one match closer!” You pushed away from the railing and gave him a light punch.  
“Don’t complain to me,” you told him. “I’m the one who has to go right now!” Since your match was scheduled to occur after Gaara’s and Sasuke’s match, now that theirs was pushed back you had to have yours early.  
“_______ _______ and Aburame Shino! Come down!” the judge called you.  
“Wish me luck, guys,” you said as you walked out of the room. Of course, with this new trick up your sleeve, you didn’t think you’d need it. You’d told Matsuko who your opponent was during your journey to your training area and she’d told you something she knew about the Aburame clan. Since they fought with bugs and allowed them to live in their bodies, they grew particularly attached to them to the point that seeing them die is horrifying. She said she once when on a mission with a man from the Aburame clan who went home because they’d run into a flock of birds that kept picking off his beetles. That was part of the reason she’d had you sign a contract with the bats. The other was that bats were good for surveillance. When you reached the arena, you and Shino faced each other.  
“You may begin,” the judge told you. Shino raised his arms and bugs began to crawl out of his chakra holes. It was really creepy, so you decided to quickly summon Hansuke and end this as soon as possible. You bit your thumb hard enough to draw blood, formed the proper hand seals, and then slammed your hand onto the ground in front of you. There was a puff of smoke and a medium sized bat appeared.  
“Thanks for showing up, Hansuke!” you greeted your bat. “Sorry for summoning you in the daylight, but as compensation I’ll offer you all those bugs over there.” You pointed towards Shino, who was still crawling with insects. Some of those insects were advancing on you.  
“As long as you feed me you can call me whenever you want!” Hansuke replied. “Come here little beetles!” He flew towards the bugs that were crawling in your direction first since they posed the most immediate threat.  
“NO!” Shino shouted, his face significantly more animated than usual. “Stay away!” If you didn’t know better, you would say that he was crying. Actually, he was crying. “I forfeit, I forfeit!” That took even less time than you’d been expecting. Hansuke had only eaten about ten bugs out of the thousands that were present. Matsuko had been right about the Aburame clan’s weakness. The crowd became agitated again at the short match. They yelled at Shino for giving in so quickly, but he just gathered his bugs and quickly left the arena.  
“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” you said to Hansuke.  
"Bye, ______!” the bat said before disappearing in a puff of smoke.  
“The winner of this match is _______ _______!” the judge announced. You gave one short wave to the crowd and then went back to the waiting room.  
“You’re up,” you told Shikamaru when you got there.  
“What a drag,” he complained. “I’m blaming you for ending the match so early.”  
“Sorry I’m so talented,” you apologized sarcastically. “Now get down there before those people burn the arena down.” Shikamaru waved you off and bent over the railing. Gaara’s sister, who was his opponent, opened up her giant fan and rode it out the window down to the ground. The judge called up to him to come down, but Shikamaru didn’t move.  
“Good luck, Shikamaru!” Naruto shouted, patting him on the back. The force of the blond’s affection knocked him right over the rail and down into the arena. A person needed more than luck to survive if Naruto was around.


	19. Blood and Betrayal

Shikamaru lay on his back for quite a long time. It wasn’t long before people in the crowd started throwing various garbage items at him and yelling for him to hurry up and finish his match. Sometimes you couldn’t stand civilians. They never thought about anybody but themselves. It didn’t matter to them that the situation was something beyond the competitors’ control and it didn’t matter to them how long all of you had been training to reach this point. They didn’t know the hardships everyone had faced. All they could do was sit around and grow fat while thinking it was unfair that they had to wait even an hour to get what they wanted. You really couldn’t wait until you became a hermit. Then you would never have to see these people’s irritating faces again.  
“Seriously, can’t they shut up for five seconds?” you complained to Naruto, who was leaning against the railing next to you. “I’ll go deaf with all these howler monkeys screaming like this.” Your teammate didn’t seem fazed at all.  
“What, you’re giving up, too?” Gaara’s sister taunted Shikamaru.  
“C’mon!” Naruto whined while hopping from one foot to the other. “What is he doing?!” You gave him a sideways look and raised one eyebrow.  
“You probably killed him when you pushed him off the balcony,” you told him.  
“No way!” the bond protested. “He wouldn’t die from just that much!” You looked over the rail at Shikamaru, who stared back up at you with an exasperated expression. Could you really blame him, though? “Come on, Shikamaru!” Naruto shouted again. “Get it together and go!” No amount of yelling was about to budge the lazy ninja.  
“If you don’t come,” Gaara’s sister growled, “I’ll go!” She ran across the field toward Shikamaru, despite the protests from the judge who hadn’t officially started the match yet. She slammed her fan down on the pineapple haired ninja and a cloud of dust formed from the impact. When it cleared, Shikamaru was nowhere to be seen. You craned your neck to get a better view and saw that he was stuck to the wall below you.  
“It doesn’t matter if I become a Chuunin or not,” he said. “But there’s no reason why a man should lose to a woman.”  
“I’ll kick his ass,” you muttered under your breath. That jerk.  
“Well, let’s do it,” Shikamaru said. His opponent growled angrily and, opening her fan, sent a blast of air towards him. Even though Shikamaru was your friend, you were hoping she’d get a few good hits in on him for the sake of women. When the dust from her second attack cleared, Shikamaru was once again nowhere to be seen.  
“Come on, get it together!” Naruto continued to attempt to spur his lazy friend into action. You found Shikamaru in the sparse crop of trees at the edge of the arena. He straightened his back and took a step forward.  
“Ninja Art: Wind Scythe Jutsu!” the blonde woman shouted as she made a slashing motion with that giant fan of hers. A strong wind buffeted Shikamaru and he put his arms up to protect his face. Large gashes were made in the trees and a limb was even severed. Once again, there was a large cloud of dust that made it hard to see what was going on. Then, a shadow came rushing towards the fan girl. She jumped backwards several times to get away, but stopped when she noticed that the shadow could not pursue her any further. It withdrew and she quickly drew a line in the dirt to mark the range limit. She had caught on to the limitations of the Jutsu, noting that it could only stretch as far as Shikamaru’s own shadow allowed. You watched intently to see what would happen next, but instead of attacking again, Shikamaru crouched down and moved his hands into a circle position. He stayed like that for almost five minutes. If it had been you fighting him, you would have used that time to take him out, but to each her own. If Gaara’s sister wanted to let him just sit there and plan out a strategy like that, that was her choice to make. After a long period of time, Shikamaru finally opened his eyes. You could see from the look on his face that he had a good strategy planned out. “Looks like you’ve got some fighting spirit now,” the blonde commented, opening her fan again. Again, she sent a blast of air in his direction that he dodged by hiding behind a tree. When it subsided, she followed it up with another. Before the dust of the second attack settled, another shadow rushed towards her. Thinking that she knew where the shadow would stop, the woman didn’t move. The shadow, however, did not stop where she thought it would. You realized that Shikamaru was taking his time so that the sun would go down and the shadow of the wall would grow. Luckily for the blonde, she was able to dodge the shadow before it caught her, but a second shadow grew close to her feet. You looked above her to see that Shikamaru had turned his jacket into a balloon so that it would create a shadow he could use to stretch his Jutsu further. Fan Girl jumped back each time the shadow grew close to her until she was outside its range again. The shirt balloon deflated and fell to the ground, no longer useable. Scanning the arena, you took note of where she was standing. It was right in between the big hole where Naruto fell and the small one he climbed out of. The big hole was on Shikamaru’s side, within range of his Shadow Possession Jutsu.  
“So he was leading her to that spot the whole time, huh?” you said. Naruto looked at you in confusion.  
“What do you mean, _______?” he asked. You shook your head and pointed to the field.  
“Just watch.” Gaara’s sister had placed her fan in between her and Shikamaru, probably thinking that she could use the cover to execute a surprise attack. When she moved to do that, however, she found herself unable to move. Shikamaru moved his arms and hers mirrored the action.  
“At last,” Shikamaru said, “Shadow Possession Jutsu is a success.” His opponent couldn’t figure out how he’d managed to do that. “I’ll let you have a look behind you,” he said, turning his own head so that hers would follow. When the hole behind her was in her field of vision, she gasped. The fan barrier she put up blocked her vision just as much as it blocked Shikamaru’s, so she hadn’t noticed when he stretched his shadow into the hole in front of her and out the hold behind her. “You saw it too, didn’t you?” Shikamaru asked. “That hole is the hole Naruto burrowed and flew out of. So it’s connected to the big hole in front of you.” You shook your head and sighed. As much as you would have liked to beat him up for that comment earlier, you knew that you wouldn’t beat him in a fight. His ability to predict and lead his opponent about were on a completely different level than yours.  
“I didn’t expect that…” Gaara’s sister admitted. “A shadow in a tunnel of a hole…” Shikamaru began to walk towards her, and she followed suit until he stopped when they were about five feet away from each other.  
“Way to go, Shikamaru!” Naruto shouted beside you. Shikamaru raised his and his opponent’s hands.  
“Good grief… I give up!” he announced. The entire arena went silent. Naruto’s mouth was hanging open wide enough that something could fly right in. You laughed. It wasn’t that you’d been expecting this, but it didn’t really come as a surprise, either. He was probably thinking that he’d done enough to show his ability. In his eyes, another match would just be a waste of effort. “I’ve used too much chakra from Shadow Possession Jutsu in rapid succession,” Shikamaru explained. “I can’t hold it another ten seconds. I thought of the next trick two hundred times. But I’m out of time…” Shikamaru put his hand down and released the Jutsu with a sigh. “This has become such a pain. Doing one match is good…” There was a pause of about ten seconds before the judge announced the winner.  
“The winner is Temari!” Well, at least you knew her name now. It was hard not knowing. Even though he’d lost, you didn’t doubt that Shikamaru would become a Chuunin after this. He was able to realize when it was a good time to pull out, and was able to do so calmly without letting his emotions or desire to win get in the way. Though you doubted that could ever happen since such a desire didn’t seem to exist in the first place. It was looking like you wouldn’t pass this exam after all. With that kind of measure to stand against, it was pretty hopeless.  
“Why the heck did he give up?” Naruto demanded. “Is he an idiot? This ticks me off!” The orange ninja put a foot on the railing and pushed himself off into the arena. “I’m gonna really give him a lecture!” When he hit the ground, he ran over to Shikamaru and pointed at him. “You idiot!” he yelled.  
“Shut up, super idiot,” Shikamaru shot back at him as he did his stretches. You sighed and turned around to go find something to drink. There shouldn’t be much to see for a while, anyway. Sasuke still hadn’t shown up and that was the only match left before the winners had to fight each other. Before long, you found a concession stand and bought yourself a cup of already cooked instant ramen and a bottle of water. When you returned to the waiting room, nobody was there but Gaara and his siblings. You wondered how Kankuro got in, since he’d already failed out of the competition. As soon as you entered, they went quiet. It was like they’d been talking about something nobody was supposed to hear.  
“Oh my, did I interrupt something?” you asked. “Were you having an intervention for Kankuro and his makeup?” Kankuro growled and stepped forward like he was about to attack you, but thought better of it and stopped.  
“Whatever,” he snapped.  
“Because the time limit has expired, the last match…” the judge’s voice caught everyone’s attention. Was Sasuke seriously not here yet? ‘That guy… what’s taking him so long?’ You hoped he was just planning to make a fashionable entrance and wasn’t in some sort of trouble. A miniature tornado full of leaves appeared in the middle of the field and dispersed to reveal Sasuke and Kakashi standing in the middle of the spiraling leaves. So it was a fashionable entrance after all.  
“See… here he is…” Gaara said to his siblings. So they’d been talking about Sasuke before you showed up.  
“Well, I’m sorry we’re late,” Kakashi apologized to the judge.  
“What is your name?” the judge asked Sasuke.  
“Uchiha Sasuke,” the raven haired ninja replied. The crowd cheered. The person they’d been waiting for had finally arrived.  
“You sure are late,” Naruto commented. “I thought you weren’t coming because you scared to take me on!” That was big talk coming from the guy who said he’d come for sure.  
“The first round… did you win?” Sasuke asked. It was a real relief to hear his voice. Though you weren’t sure whose you liked more right now, Sasuke’s or Gaara’s… You stepped harshly on your own foot. ‘Just because I let myself fall for one guy doesn’t mean I have to fall for all of them!’ you yelled at yourself. ‘Seriously, what is wrong with me lately? How much do I intend to break my promise to myself…’ You missed the rest of the exchange between Naruto and Sasuke while you were spacing out, and when you came to your senses Sasuke was staring right at you. As much as you would have liked to smile at him, you decided to glare at him for making you worry instead.  
“You’d better not die, Storm Cloud!” you called down to him. “Don’t forget that I’ll definitely come to the underworld to kick your ass!” Sasuke just smirked. His hair was a bit longer than you remembered it being.  
“Well, I know it’s somewhat rude to be showing up all flashy like this…” Kakashi said. “But was Sasuke… disqualified?” The judge sighed and looked at the ground.  
“So your habit of tardiness rubbed off on him?” he muttered. “It’s alright. Sasuke’s match has been postponed anyway. Your arrival was barely in time, but he hasn’t been disqualified.” Kakashi laughed in relief and Sasuke’s gaze shifted from you to Gaara. He was his opponent after all. You looked at Gaara, too. Hopefully Sasuke wouldn’t end up ‘verifying his existence’ or anything like that. Still, you might as well wish him just enough luck that Sasuke wouldn’t kill him either…  
“Well, good luck down there!” you told Gaara, smiling slightly. He stiffened and turned to look at you. The redhead stared at you for several seconds before giving you a tiny nod and looking back at Sasuke again. His face slowly twisted into that crazed murder look he’d had in the hospital yesterday. Sasuke definitely needed way more luck than this guy. Perhaps you should have saved all your wishes for him.  
“Hey, Gaara, watch yourself down there!” Kankuro warned him as he was walking towards the stairs. Temari quickly slapped her hand over his mouth.  
“Don’t talk to him right now,” she whispered. “He’ll kill you.” It was a good thing he hadn’t killed you when you talked to him less than a minute earlier.  
“It’s time then,” the judge announced when Gaara was standing on the field across from Sasuke. “The rules are the same as the preliminaries. The match goes on until one of you dies or admits defeat. When it’s determined that there’s a winner, the match can be stopped. But that’s my decision.” Gaara, who still had that crazy look on his face, chuckled ominously. You wished that he wasn’t fighting Sasuke. He gave off the same kind of killing aura as Orochimaru, but with less control. Something else you were worried about was that curse mark of Sasuke’s. It was likely that getting it under control was part of the training he’d been doing with Kakashi, but it was possible that it was still an issue. “Both of you go to the middle,” the judge instructed the two combatants. You put your hands on the rail and leaned forward. When they were in position, the judge raised his arm and brought it down in a slashing motion. “Begin!” He jumped back out of the way and the match started.  
Sand began pouring from Gaara’s gourd. It rose behind him and poised to attack. Suddenly, he seemed to be in pain and put a hand over his forehead, lurching forward with a gasp. It was like what happened in the hospital when Guy stopped him from killing Lee.  
“Please don’t get so mad…” he groaned. But who was he talking to? “Mother… Earlier… Earlier I had you suck awful tasting blood. I’m sorry.” He killed someone? ‘When did he have the time to do that?’ you wondered. ‘And who is this mother he’s talking to? I thought he said that she died in childbirth.’ “But this time, it’ll likely taste good.”  
“His conversation’s started,” Kankuro said. “This is dangerous.”  
“This is the first time I’ve seen Gaara get like that before fighting,” Temari added. “So it must mean that his opponent is that imposing.” Gaara flinched again and the sand that had risen behind him earlier fell to the ground. He bent forward and breathed deeply before looking back up at Sasuke. His face was much calmer than before.  
“Come on,” Gaara said.  
“Let’s go,” Sasuke agreed. He threw two shuriken and both were intercepted by a wall of sand which formed into a clone of Gaara, catching the weapons in its hand. Sasuke darted towards the redhead, but the clone ran forward as well and let out a large burst of sand from its chest. Sasuke dodged it by jumping into the air and threw two more shuriken before diving towards the clone and landing a kick. After he landed, Sasuke hit the clone in the throat with the back of his forearm. It looked shocked for a moment, but then the sand closed around Sasuke’s arm and Sand Gaara smirked. Sasuke punched through it and managed to pull his arm away. He dashed forward and swung his fist at the real Gaara’s face. A sand wall rose to block the strike, but instead of allowing his fist to connect, Sasuke disappeared and reappeared behind Gaara where he landed a right hook that sent his opponent sliding across the ground. Cracks appeared on Gaara’s check and you knew that he’d been using the sand armor to protect himself. You wondered if he ever actually took it off or if it was something that was in place at all times. That was a possibility, since he had to worry about assassins all the time. Gaara sat up and glared at Sasuke. “Is that the sand armor?” the Uchiha asked. “Come on!” Sasuke waited for Gaara to move. “If you’re not gonna come at me, I’ll go at you!” he said when the sand ninja took too long to make his move. He charged towards his opponent and the sand rose to block him. Every time a wall of sand rose, Sasuke moved around it until he was able to get close enough to Gaara to kick him across the field. The sand gathered underneath its master and cushioned his fall. “What’s the matter? Is that it?” Sasuke taunted. It appeared that your worries for him were unfounded. Rather, Gaara was the one who seemed to be at a disadvantage. “That armor… I’ll tear it off.” Sasuke was a blur as he ran circles around Gaara, looking for an opening in the ring of sand that formed to ward him off. He’d been around about four times before he dove under the sand and kicked Gaara in the cheek. While the redhead was recovering from the blow, Sasuke grabbed hold of the sashes on his chest and kneed him in the stomach before jumping away to find his bearings again. Gaara stood in the middle of his sand and stared at Sasuke. The place where he was hit earlier was still cracked and he was breathing heavily. Then, he formed a seal with his hands.  
“A seal?” you asked, to nobody in particular. For the most part, Gaara’s sand seemed to move without direction from him, so for him to be forming a seal he must have been planning a big move. His sand shifted and moved into a sphere around his body. Sasuke ran forward in order to land a blow before the sand hid Gaara completely, but when he reached the sphere it had already hardened and sharp spikes jutted out to meet him. When he jumped away, the spikes receded and the shell became smooth. You wondered what he was doing in there. Then, a small amount of sand rose above the shell and formed into an eye. Gaara’s siblings tensed next to you. A quick look at them told you that whatever Gaara was doing, it wasn’t anything good. Sasuke got tired of standing and looking at the ball and moved to attack, but any time he got close, those spikes were there to meet him. Giving up on attacking the sand orb directly, Sasuke back-flipped across the field and up the wall of the arena. He stopped near the top of the fifty foot wall and began to make a series of hand signs, and then held his wrist. Lightning started to jump from his palm and he moved his hand in an arc, the wall getting scraped away in the path of the electricity. He ran down the wall and towards the ball of sand. A deep groove was left in the stone from his passing. Once again, the spikes rose up to intercept him. This time they were dodged by Sasuke and he plunged the fist of lightning into the wall of Gaara’s sand sphere.  
“No way!” Kankuro exclaimed. “That Gaara’s absolute protection…”  
“It’s impossible…” Temari whispered. Your attention was brought away from the two of them by frantic screaming coming from the arena.  
“Blood… my blood is…!” The screaming was coming from Gaara. Sasuke tried to pull his arm out but something was keeping it in place so he reactivated the lightning and pulled back with all his strength. As his arm was slowly removed from the sand shell, you saw what looked like the arm of a huge beast follow him.  
“It’s that thing’s arm!” Kankuro gasped. “Has the perfect possession happened?” You didn’t know what perfect possession was, but by the tone of Kankuro’s voice you knew that it was something to be afraid of.  
“I don’t know,” Temari replied. “He seems to be injured… This has never happened before!” Both ninja were clearly terrified of what would happen now.  
“He’s never been injured before?” you asked them. Temari shook her head.  
“No, never. Nobody’s ever gotten close enough…” she told you. That would explain the screaming earlier. The large arm that had followed Sasuke slowly sucked back into a hole in the sand shell. Sasuke’s face paled at something you couldn’t see that was happening inside that hole. Then, the sphere began to crack. It slowly dissolved until it was in a large puddle at Gaara’s feet. He was breathing heavily and clutching his shoulder which was covered in blood. For a reason you didn’t entirely understand, you really didn’t like seeing that blood. It bothered you. While Sasuke and Gaara were standing still, there was an explosion that sounded like it came from where the two Kages were sitting. You leaned over the rail and looked up to verify it, and saw that it really had come from there.  
“Gaara!” Kankuro called out as he and his sister jumped into the arena. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ you wondered. The best opportunity to find out, you thought, was to follow those two. So, you jumped down into the arena along with them. A person’s scream drew your attention to the roof of the Kages’ section of the stands. A flaming body was rolling down the tiles and a large purple barrier separated the top of the roof from anybody trying to reach it. You ran over to Sasuke.  
“Sasuke, do you have any idea what’s going on?” you asked him. He shook his head.  
“I have no clue…”  
“Gaara, you have to stop!” Temari pleaded with her brother.  
“I’ll kill him…” Gaara growled. He was staring intensely at Sasuke and breathing heavily. You grabbed Sasuke’s arm and started pulling him away.  
“We need to find Kakashi-sensei,” you told him. Gaara pushed past his siblings and started to walk towards you and Sasuke. Before he could make any progress, the Jounin that had accompanied them here landed in front of him.  
“What are you doing?” he demanded. “The operation is already under way!” Gaara clutched his head in pain again. Despite the dangerous situation, you still felt concerned for him. It was probably very lucky that the judge from the final round dropped to the ground in front of you before you could do anything stupid.  
“What in the world is going on?” Sasuke demanded. Before anybody could answer that question, Gaara fell to his knees, gasping.  
“Gaara!” Temari knelt down beside him. “His wound is deeper than I thought! And moreover his chakra is pretty drained!”  
“What’s happening to him?” you asked. Sasuke grabbed your arm and pulled you backwards, and you realized that you had been about to walk over there.  
“Stay back, ______,” your teammate warned you.  
“Idiot,” the sand Jounin cursed Gaara. “It’s all because you tried to do the perfect possession!”  
“What are we supposed to do, then?” Kankuro demanded. “Are you saying we have to do this without Gaara?” You suddenly realized that the Kazekage had decided to betray the treaty with Konoha. But what was the point of that? Another thing you realized was that even though that guy was constantly trying to kill his own son, he would still use him when it was convenient. In your mind, and probably in reality too, the Kazekage was two hundred percent evil.  
“Gaara is Suna’s trump card,” the Jounin said. “We have to get him to do his work no matter what.” You glared at the man around the judge in front of you.  
“He’s not a machine, you know!” you scolded him. “He’s a person.” The glare shifted to Kankuro and Temari. “That guy is your brother, right? Shouldn’t you be more concerned about whether he’s alright?” Despite his obvious pain, Gaara dragged his eyes up to your face. His brother and sister looked at you as well.  
“That’s none of your business, useless little girl,” the Jounin snapped at you. “You guys leave for the moment and tend to Gaara’s wounds!” he instructed the other two sand ninja. “As soon as Gaara’s chakra has been restored the operation will recommence!”  
“What about you, Sensei?” Temari asked him.  
“I’m gonna suppress those guys!” he told her before turning to the three of you. Temari and Kankuro carried Gaara away and your eyes followed them. Sasuke’s hand, which hadn’t let go of your arm, tightened its grip on you.  
“_______, why are you so concerned with that guy?” he asked. The look on his face was the same one that he had all the other times he’d seen you interact with Gaara, a mix of confusion and irritation. You understood the confusion, but the irritation was odd.  
“Well someone should be, shouldn’t they?” you replied. “Everyone deserves to be acknowledged.” The enemy began to approach you and you shook off Sasuke’s hand so you would be prepared to defend yourself. “Now isn’t the time for this conversation,” you said.  
“Do you think things will go according to your plan?” the judge asked the other man.  
“I’ll make them so,” he responded.  
“Is Orochimaru the host of this party?” You stiffened at the leaf Jounin’s question. Was that guy really involved with this? Why did you have to see him again?  
“Dunno… In any case, let’s heat things up.”  
“Sasuke, ______... Sorry, but the Chuunin Exam ends here. Sasuke has already achieved Chuunin level. If you’re Leaf shinobi, be of service to Konoha!” The judge didn’t take his eyes off of his opponent while he was talking.  
“In other words, we’re supposed to take down that jerk, Gaara, right?” Sasuke asked. “A continuation of earlier on, right?” You had a lot of conflicted feelings about that assignment. On one hand, it was your duty to defend the village. On the other hand, you didn’t want to take down Gaara. But, if you wanted to protect the innocent people of Konoha, you didn’t have a choice.  
“Don’t pursue too far,” the Jounin warned you. “From here on, it’s no longer an exam. It’s the real thing!”  
“What I have to do is the same thing,” Sasuke replied. He took a hold of your arm again and pulled you away, in the direction the three sand ninja went.  
“I won’t let them escape!” the enemy ninja said. He threw three shuriken at the two of you, but the leaf ninja blocked them with a kunai and before he could attack again, you and Sasuke were over the wall.


End file.
